By THOMPSON YAMPUT

The Police Command in Kogi on Monday dismissed claims by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of planned attack on its candidate and supporters in the state.

The command’s Public Relation Officer, SP Williams Ovye-Aya in a statement in Lokoja, described the allegation against its Commissioner of Police, Onuoha Bethrand, as “fake, incendiary, perfidious, malicious and misleading.”

Adejoh-Audu, Director Communications to Murtala Ajaka’s Gubernatorial Campaign Organization had in a statement, accused the state CP of planning to attack his principal and SDP supporters during campaigns in the state.

He called on the Inspector General of Police to call the CP to order and to compel him to give adequate protection to Ajaka and all SDP supporters in Kogi.

But Ovye-Aya said the allegations by Adejoh-Audu that there was a purported planned attack by the commissioner of police on Ajaka’s supporters in Kogi local government area was totally false.

“The command wishes to emphatically and categorically state that, the statement is not only the figment of the imagination of Adejoh-Audu and his political candidate, Yakubu Ajaka but completely false.

“Ajaka, we believe, has mastered the art of political gimmickry and brigandage.

“The commissioner of police, who 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 the Kogi should not be dragged into politics.

“The SDP candidate and his campaign organization 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,” he said.

Ovye-Aya added, “The entire narrative to injure, assassinate and malign the reputation and integrity of CP is the height of insensitivity, callousness, self-serving and emblematic of desperation and vindictiveness.”

According to him, on June 3 along Abuja-Lokoja road, the SDP Candidate Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his supporters blocked and attacked the Convoy of the Governor of Kogi, Alhaji Yahaya Bello at Banda some kilometers away from Lokoja.

He said that during the attack, some of the governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries and all efforts, invitations and entreaties to Ajaka “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 CP hereby appeals to 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.

“The whipping up of sentiments against the police and heating up the state’s polity for no just cause should stop,” he pleaded.

Ovye-Aya, however, urged the good and peace loving, highly enlightened, politically sophisticated residents of Kogi, to disregard and discountenance such mischievous and malicious information.

He advised them to be wary of being hoodwinked by merchants of violence but instead gravitate toward issues that united the state rather than those that dividend them.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the SDP candidate had recently approached the court through his Counsel, Chief Femi Falana (SAN) to compel the Kogi CP to ensure his and party members’ safety during the electioneering campaigns, polls and after. (NAN)

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