Kogi police commissioner warns SDP candidate: Don’t drag me into politics

The Kogi State Commissioner of Police, Bethrand Onuoha, has debunked a planned attack on the supporters of the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the state, Yakubu Ajaka, warning the latter not to drag him into politics.

Onuoha described as fake and malicious, the allegations by the spokesperson of Murtala Yakubu Ajaka Gubernatorial Campaign Organisation, Faruk Adejoh-Audu, that the police commissioner has perfected plans to attack Ajaka’s supporters ahead of the November 11 governorship election in the state.

He made this known in a statement issued by the Kogi State Police Public Relations Officer, SP William Ovye Aya, on Monday, September 4, 2023.

Aya noted that Onuoha, upon assumption of duty one month ago, has so far demonstrated a high level of professionalism by providing a level playing ground for all political parties and their candidates to operate in Kogi State, adding that the police commissioner should not be dragged into politics.

He added: The SDP candidate and his campaign organization should leave the police alone and focus on issues-based campaigns and soliciting 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.”

The police spokesperson further recalled that the SDP governorship candidate and his supporters, along the Abuja-Lokoja expressway on June 3, 2023, blocked and attacked the convoy of Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello.

Aya stated that some of the governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries during the attack, adding that invitations and entreaties to Ajaka to give his own side of the incident were rejected by the SDP candidate.

He noted: “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.

“The Commissioner of Police hereby appeals to Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his Campaign Organization 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.”

The police spokesman urged the people of Kogi State to “disregard and discountenance such mischievous and malicious information”.

The Star