The Kogi State Police Command has warned the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Murtala Yakubu Ajaka to desist from what it described as cheap blackmail of the police force.
The Command, in a press statement on Monday reacted to allegations by the candidate where in he accused the State Commissioner of Police, Bethrand Onuoha of planning to attack him and his supporters in Kogi Local Government Area.
The police said the allegation was a resort to cheap blackmail, bullying and arm-twisting for political sympathy from the public.
The spokesperson of the command, ASP William Aya in the statement, said Ajaka has mastered the art of political gimmickry and highly mischievous,warning him to leave the police alone.
“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
“It would be recalled that, on 3rd June 2023 along Abuja-Lokoja road, the SDP Candidate Murtala Yakubu Ajaka and his supporters blocked and attacked the Convoy of the Executive Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello at Banda some kilometers away from Lokoja. Some of the Governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries during the attack. All efforts, invitations, and entreaties to come and give his own side of the incident have come to naught. 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, or intellect and are oblivious to the legal consequences of deformation and assassination of character
“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 undermining 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
“And to the good and peace-loving, highly enlightened, Politically sophisticated citizens of Kogi State, the Commissioner of Police urges you all to disregard and discountenance such mischievous and malicious information, and to be wary of being hoodwinked by Merchants of violence, but instead gravitate towards issues that unite the State rather than those that divide you, please.
