The Kogi State Police Command has described the allegation of a planned attack on the supporters of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Murtala Yakubu Ajaka by the force as fake, incendiary, perfidious and malicious.
The Police, while warning the SDP candidate not to drag the force into politics, said it is committed to providing a level-playing ground for all political parties in the state and urged the public to disregard the false claims.
In a press statement issued by the state Police public relations offfer (PPRO), SP William Ovye Aya, the command said its attention had been drawn to the misleading allegations by Faruk Adejoh-Audu, who is the director of Communications, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka Gubernatorial Campaign Organisation, to the effect that the Commissioner of Police Bethrand Onuoha plans attack on Ajaka Supporters in Kogi LGA.
The command said the statement is not only the figment of the imagination of Faruk Adejoh-Audu and his political candidate, Yakubu Ajaka, who has “mastered the art of political gimmickry and brigandage, but a totally false, malicious, pretentious, and highly mischievous.”
The Police said the commissioner of Police, upon assumption of duty one month ago, has demonstrated a high level of professionalism by providing a level playing ground for all political parties and their candidates to operate in the state, adding that he should not be dragged into politics.
The statement read in part: “The candidate and his Campaign Organisation should leave the Police alone and focus on issues-based Campaigns and soliciting for support from the electorate instead of resorting to cheap blackmail, bullying and arm-twisting for Political sympathy from the public who already know their tricks, gimmicks and antecedents.
The entire narrative to injure, assassinate and malign the hard-earned reputation and integrity of the Commissioner of Police is the height of insensitivity, callousness, self-serving and emblematic of desperation, vindictiveness, a Propensity for destructiveness and to salivate the insidious and vaulting Political ambition of a psychopath.
“It would be recalled that, on 3rd June, 2023 along Abuja-Lokoja road, the SDP Candidate Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his supporters blocked and attacked the Convoy of the Executive Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello at Banda some kilometers away from Lokoja. During the attack, some of the Governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries. All efforts, invitations and entreaties to come and give his own side of the incident has come to nought. Yet he has been moving around the nooks and crannies of the State without any molestation even when he has no immunity. The case is still under Investigation.
“In a democracy, freedom of expression is a right, but it must be accompanied by responsibility, not to hide under its guise to spin out lies, falsehood, innuendos and sensationalism. It shows the writer and his sponsors have no decorum, decency, intellect, and are oblivious of the legal consequences of deformation and assassination of character.
“The Commissioner of Police hereby appeals to Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his Campaign Organisation to leave him alone, stop all the negative write-ups and frivolous allegations aimed at under-mining the spirited crime-fighting efforts of the Police in Kogi State and whipping up sentiment against them and heating up the State for no just cause.
“And to the good and peace loving, highly enlightened, Politically sophisticated citizens of Kogi State, the Commissioner of Police urges you all to disregard and discountenance such mischievous and malicious information, and to be wary of being hoodwinked by Merchants of violence, but instead gravitate towards issues that unite the State rather than those that divide you, please”, the statement noted.
