The Kogi State Police Command has issued a caution to Murtala Ajaka, the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the upcoming November 11th election.
They have advised him to prioritize addressing the substantive issues within his campaign rather than resorting to unfounded allegations. This advice was conveyed through a statement released by the Command’s spokesperson, William Aya, on a recent Monday.
Over the weekend, the Director of Communications for the Ajaka Campaign Organisation, Faruk Adejoh-Audu, had alleged that Governor Yahaya Bello was planning to launch attacks on SDP supporters.
Adejoh-Audu alleged that the governor, faced with “mass rejection” leading to a “gale of defections” from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, allegedly recruited the police commissioner Bethrand Onuoha to unleash a campaign of intimidation on Ajaka’s supporters.
Reacting to the claims, the police said, “The Command wishes to emphatically and categorically state that, the statement is not only the figment of the imagination of Faruk Adejoh-Audu and his Political Candidate Yakubu Ajaka who has mastered the art of Political gimmickry and brigandage, but totally false, malicious, pretentious, and highly mischievous. 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 State 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. 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 kilometres away from Lokoja. During the attack, some of the Governor’s aides sustained varying degrees of injuries. All efforts, invitations and entreaties 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 police commissioner appealed to Ajaka and his campaign organisation “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.”
