Elder statesman and prominent Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday, wrote a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari, insisting that the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, and top police officers were behind the raid at his Abuja home, on Tuesday.

The erstwhile Federal Commissioner for Information, in the petition he copied the National Security Adviser, NSA, Major-General Babagana Monguno (retd), said there were serious questions that ought to be determined by President Buhari with regards to not only the fact that he was placed under suspicion, but also the fact that a search warrant could be procured against him on demeaning allegations that he was involved in gun-running.

This came as the IGP, yesterday, approved the dismissal of three inspectors involved in the raid; even as the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, called for the prosecution of the officers involved.

Similarly, Delta State Advocacy Committee Against Vandalism of Oil and Gas Facilities, led by the Deputy Governor of Delta State, Kingsley Otuaro, urged aggrieved militants not to attack oil facilities.

Querying the rationale behind the arrest of four junior officers he said merely obeyed directives from their superiors to raid his home, Chief Clark, said: “there was an extreme level of conspiracy involved in this case which ought to be duly probed and investigated.”

AIG okayed raid on my home — Clark

He told President Buhari that shortly before his home was ransacked by officers and men of the IGP Tactical Squad, a former Secretary to Bayelsa State Government, Ambassador Boladei Igali, who was his guest, placed a call to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police (Federal Intelligence) Mr. Umoru Usman Shehu, who he said spoke with the leader of the search party and authorized them to go ahead with their assignment.

Chief Clark said the search team informed him that they acted on the instructions of the IGP and also identified the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Yusuf Kolo, as their commander.

He said it was, therefore, baffling and unfortunate that the top echelon of the Police would “publicly and brazenly deny knowledge of the search, in spite of the evidence of clear contacts made with them before the search commenced.”

Though Chief Clark said he accepted apologies from the Police authorities, he demanded that the case be “comprehensively probed and thoroughly investigated to fish out all the conspirators” that masterminded the invasion of his residence without due cause.

The Police had, on Wednesday, admitted that their men conducted the raid on the strength of a false tip-off from an informant identified as Ismail Yakubu, a resident of Waru village in Abuja.

The petition, marked KACCL/PET/KA/76/18, which Chief Clark wrote through his team of lawyers, led by Dr. Kayode Ajulo, was also copied to the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Minister of Interior, Chairman of Police Service Commission and President of the Nigerian Bar Association.

Clark demands that "this case be comprehensively probed and thoroughly investigated to fish out all the conspirators who masterminded the invasion of his residence without due cause."

•Excerpted from a Vanguard report

•Police Public Relations Officer, Ag. DCP Jimoh Moshood parading Mr Ismail Yakubu, who said gave false information to the Police before the raid on Chief Edwin Clark’s house in Abuja.

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