The Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Umar Mamman Sanda, has said an investigation was ongoing on the alleged threat to life raised by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.
Reacting to the petition written to the IGP, Usman Baba, the Bauchi police commissioner said: “What happened is that, we received discreet information that there are some of our officers, one of our police officers was attempting to sell a rifle, so we went after him, initially we have received prior information that he was carrying the rifles inside his car, we went after him, we got him and asked about the owner of the car and he said he is the owner, we searched the car and we discovered the guns.
“When we asked who gave him the guns and he confessed he wanted to sell it, we now asked him, is it our own rifles that you want to sell and he said yes, we arrested him and started investigating him. In the cause of our investigation, he implicated one person whom they live in the same house with.
“In continuation of our investigations of the first person, he said it was someone in Tafawa Balewa who approached him that he is looking for rifle to buy and that is what prompted him to carry that gun. When he gave us the name of the person, we went and arrested him.”
Sanda added: “When we arrested him, he confessed to us that it is true that he is looking for rifle to buy because something terrible happened to him, that his house alongside those of others were burned during the last December 2021 incident that occurred following the Baba Peter Gonto memorial anniversary”.
“He mentioned names of some people, including that of the former Speaker in connection to the incident, saying that, that is the reason why he is looking for rifle to kill him (Dogara), and so, we launched an investigation to that regard.
“One thing with human being is, if he is guilty, he would not want to admit until you use wisdom, so we have intensified our investigations.
“And on the missing rifle in our armory, I directed that our armory be audited and in the cause of auditing, we discovered that apart from the two rifles we intercepted, some were not in the armory and so we have expanded our investigations,” the CP said.
According to him, “Now that I am talking to you, our armory officer who retired two years ago was arrested day before yesterday because we have been looking for him and now he is in our custody.
“We were still investigating and we saw that he has written to the IGP and is alleging that we didn’t call to inform him. I can tell you, if not because of what that man said, he would not discover any statement from another person that his life is at stake.”
The police commissioner further stated that apart from what the man said he was looking for rifle to kill the former Speaker, no other suspect has corroborated his confession saying: “We wouldn’t want to tell the world that this is that and that and at the end of the day, investigation reveals a different thing.
READ ALSO: Dogara petitions IGP over alleged assassination attempt by policemen
“And so, because of that, this thing is not right and the police is doing its job, we will complete our investigations and we are on it, by the grace of God we will tell the world the outcome of the investigation once we are through with it, there nothing to hide in it.”
Sanda added: “We have reached where we are in this matter due to our doggedness and resilience, if not, we would not have even known. So, it’s not the way he said it and we are hoping that the citizens will give us time to complete our investigation after which we will definitely made it known to the public in Sha Allahu.
“Even before now, we have informed the Force Headquarters about the matter and this issue that I am telling you about, if not because of the situation on ground I am not supposed to tell the press until after we completed our investigations, the letter indicated that we have not done anything seeing that his life has been exposed to danger, that’s not how it is.”
While responding to another question, the CP said: “Yes, he is right, he has the right to petition the IGP, we are not saying it is wrong but for him to say that the Police did not do the needful or cautioned him that his life is in danger, we are yet to confirm the claim because it came from only one person and we have not found confirmation or corroboration that the threat from the other person is true.
“So, we have handed over the investigation to experts in handling armory and murder investigators to do the proper thing, they are the ones to tell us that the threat to kill the former Speaker as confessed by the other suspect is true.
“They are the ones to tell us that so and so persons are involved and that’s when we will tell the world what transpired, even the former Speaker himself, we have not reached to the point where we will seek for information from him as to whether he has been facing threat to his life before the incident and then we will continue with our investigation up to its completion.
“The former Speaker talked about himself, one Barrister Bala Gambar, CAN Chairman Tafawa Balewa LGA, but on the confession of the other suspect we have not gotten additional information from another person to confirm what is on ground.
“For those that there houses were burnt, we know them and he is among them, the one we have arrested and if he said what he said, we must investigate, we have to ask him, why would you want to kill someone because your house was burnt?.
“And if we found him guilty, we will take him to court for prosecution and we will tell the world what has happened, but we will not just come out without completing our investigations to start telling the world about it, we wouldn’t have said anything if not because we saw that he has made public his letter.
“Notwithstanding, we will continue with our investigations until we get to root of the matter in Sha Allahu,” the commissioner said.
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