By ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi –
The immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that the Nigeria Police broke the law by declaring the Member of the House of Representatives from Bauchi State, Yakubu Shehu, wanted.
NATIONAL ACCORD had reported that the Police had declared the 45-year old Lawmaker who currently represents Bauchi Federal Constituency in the Lower Chamber wanted, for criminal conspiracy, causing grievous hurt, disturbance of public peace and culpable homicide.
The Police, in a Special Police Gazette Bulletin with reference number: CB: 2685/Bsx/VOL.T/4s with the caption “wanted”, announced a N1 million bounty for anyone with useful information that could lead to his arrest, stressing that he is wanted by the State Criminal Investigation Department of the Bauchi State Police Command issued by the Authority of the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba.
But, speaking at a press conference held at the house of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Gubernatorial Candidate in Bauchi State, Sadique Abubakar, while reacting to the incident, Dogara, who currently represents Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Constituency, said the Police did not follow the proper channels in inviting his colleague.
He said: “Relating to our brother who is being accused by the Police, everybody knows that he is a sitting Member of the House of Representatives. I was Speaker of the House of Representatives, I know the process of inviting a Member who is being accused of committing an offense and these are just allegations. Nobody is alleging that they saw him with guns that he shot people to death, no. They are saying he imported some people.
“But the point is that the casualties we took, affects our security details. So, does it now mean for you to say that it was our own security agents that were now shooting their own colleagues? Does it make sense? If you say people on your own side were shot, then who now shot our own? Where are they? Have they been declared wanted?
“So, for a member of the House of Representatives to be invited by the Police, they know the law, the Legislative Houses, Powers, Privileges and Immunities Act is there, they know the law. They know how to invite him and they know the law and must not break the law for you to just invite a Lawmaker in just a few hours and you declare him wanted, when you know that you are even violating the law in the process of inviting him.
“Any Member who is to be invited to appear before any authority, a letter is to be written to the Clerk and that letter has to be forwarded to the Speaker for him (the Speaker) to be approved for him to appear. I was a Speaker and I saw so many of those letters and I treated them; that wasn’t done by the Police.
“Why did they rush to pass judgment? Is it just because someone’s name is mentioned in relation to an incident over which investigations have not been concluded? And you are declaring a Member of the House of Representatives wanted when you’ve not even given him the opportunity to appear, when you know you have summoned him in violation of the same law you are supposed to enforce?
He alleged that the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, is colluding with the Nigeria Police Force to harass, oppress and silence the opposition in the State.
“So these, to our minds, gives us the impression that, I don’t want to say this, but we see that maybe there is collusion between the authorities and the government in Bauchi State in order to come hard on members of the APC, knowing that the Governor has lost it, the Governor is just spewing lies in order to cover his tracks.
“But otherwise, why are you breaking the law in relation to Honourable Yakubu Shehu Abdullahi. Give him the opportunity if he has committed any offense, follow the law, invite him and let him go and answer. When I was there, I saw Yakubu was in the car, he didn’t even have a dane gun, he didn’t have one single weapon, even a stick.
“So, why are you accusing him of orchestrating what? Assuming, without conceding, that some of the people holding the bamboo sticks are his boys, is it the allegation that the person who died was hit with a bamboo stick? So what is he (the lawmaker) linked to? We see this as a display of mendacity, how he has lied about those things that we know that are lies,” he said.
In a reaction, the Commissioner of Police, Bauchi State, Aminu Alhassan, denied the allegations saying that he was apolitical and has no interest in whoever becomes the next governor of Bauchi State.
He said: “As a Policeman and as a Command, we are apolitical. The Command does not go any political. I don’t support any person to win or for one to have advantage over the other. I have also warned the people in my Command from participating in anything that will give advantage to any party.
“I have to reiterate that Bauchi State as of now, the forebears, the three leading gubernatorial candidates are all marvelous and none of them is bad at all and I am close to all of them. None of them is my enemy, I don’t have a vote and by virtue of my office, I don’t have time to vote for any person and I cannot kick against anybody who wants to be voted or not to be voted.”
Also reacting to the allegation that due process was not followed in inviting the Federal Lawmaker, he said that he (wanted Member) refused to honour the invitation sent to him by the Police.
“On the Police invitation which was kicked against, in all fairness to everybody, a day after the incident, it happened late in the evening, before the death of one of the victims of this shooting, I was in touch with those in the APC. Their own complaint was that some people were being gathered in Bauchi to attack them. I repelled that one by sending Policemen, they lined up in all these areas and later on, escorted them to where they wanted to go.
“But when we heard that somebody died and all accusing fingers were pointing at four prominent persons in that group, we had to start looking for them. One of the fastest ways of getting information to be delivered is to talk to the stakeholders. I spoke with the APC and requested for the four people mentioned to come and they assured me that they are coming but they didn’t come.
“I had to call them from my telephone, send messages to them that these are the people I need because allegations were going on, I even sent pictures that allegations are going from here to there and as Police, we cannot get allegations and not clear them. I sent the message and it dropped and you know that it is not hard for you to know that your message has been delivered. In fact, one of them even replied to me that I should have called him when I sent the message but I told him that it was not too late, I told him to get the people to come.
“The expression there was that they couldn’t get Hon. Yakubu. I told them clearly that I will no longer wait for any of them to bring Yakubu and Gokaru to me, I said I am going out to arrest them and they should not feel slighted, I did that.
“I then sent my operatives to go and sniff into all the nooks and crannies where these people hibernate, but on hearing that I was looking for them, they all ran out of Bauchi. We tracked them and discovered how he left Bauchi and where he went before finally reaching Abuja. We are now occupied by these politics that are on the ground and it is not for us to start going to Abuja (to look for him), Abuja is one of the fastest growing cities in Nigeria now, we don’t have that time,” he said.
Alhassan added that: “Putting it out to everybody that he is being looked for, going to his family to drop our written letter to his family and before they accepted it, they called him and told him that we brought a letter, he told them to accept it, he is fully aware. We don’t need to go to the National Assembly.
“And even the National Assembly that they are talking about needs to inform them before we invite him. No! This is a criminal issue, a criminal issue that every hand is pointing at a particular man, we don’t need to go to that extent.
“And for clarity, for all my stay in Police as an officer who has reached the position of a Commissioner of Police and this is the third Command I am handling, there was never a time I learnt that a House of Representatives Member or a Senator has immunity. Those people with immunity are already specified and the immunity is always waived when there is criminality. When you commit criminality, you’re prone to be investigated and the Police van arrest you.
“Let me cite a very good example, his colleague in Kano was charged for a similar incident, he was promptly arrested, tell me the time they went to the National Assembly to look for how they should arrest him. Ado Doguwa was arrested for a similar thing and he was arrested at the Airport, nobody went to Abuja to seek for the National Assembly’s approval to arrest him.
“So, he (Yakubu Abdullahi) has no immunity and there is no necessity that we must inform the National Assembly before we arrest him. The essence of declaring him wanted is to make him persona non grata; if he is declared wanted, it means all my Policemen including other security agencies can arrest him and bring him to me, that is the essence. Or else, he should continue to hide himself until the way Sadam locked himself in a particular place, until he is finally arrested.”
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