Barely a few days after military men took siege of the home of the national leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in Lagos, the residence of the presidential campaign spokesman of the party, Garba Shehu, was yesterday surrounded by men of the police force.
The early morning siege at Shehu’s Garki II residence lasted some hours, with the policemen reportedly saying they were there in response to a distress call.
According to a statement signed by the directorate of Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Organisation yesterday, more than 15 armed policemen, some fully dressed in uniform and others in plain, cordoned off the lane leading to Shehu’s house with five cars.
In the statement, Shehu narrated his ordeal: “I and the family members were woken from sleep by the noises from a swarm of strangers and the clattering sounds as they cocked their guns. It was a scary situation.
“Looking from the window, I saw no fewer than 15 policemen bearing weapons, some in complete uniform and others not fully dressed. It was not in doubt that our Block S.A. 12, in the NNPC Quarters, Area 11, Garki, was under a cordon. Two police cars blocked the incoming lane from the gate just by our block, and two others faced it, blocking the exit way. A big white van with heavily tinted glasses was parked between blocks 12 and 14, which faced each other.
“The armed men did not climb up to my apartment and I did not, for my part, open the door as it were, to hand myself into their hands.
“This situation persisted for about an hour until two things happened: Twitter and Facebook began to render accounts of the siege and the call to Muslim prayers came and passed without my family members leaving for the mosque.”
It was at the point, he said, that the van and three of the police vehicles drove off and the fourth one moved to the pavement by the playground with about five policemen in it, and remained there until about 7am before it, too, drove off.
He continued: “Since the end of the stand-off, I have been in communication with the Secret Service, the DSS, and the police at the highest levels. Both organisations denied knowledge of this operation at the beginning.
“The police inspector-general returned – after making his investigation – to say that policemen were there following an emergency call by a neighbour who came under a robbery attack. The telephone number of the distressed neighbour was given to me and his address was given as Block S.A. 13. The police account would have been plausible and acceptable to me but for the fact that the point of action, that is, the position of the police cars, the van and the armed men were around and between my own block S.A. 12 and 14 and therefore clearly removed from block 13, which the police report indicated.”
He also faulted the explanation about a heavily tinted van – that it brought policemen from NNPC to assist the police operation – saying that both the police and the oil company denied owning a van like that.
Saying the party will not be deterred, Shehu declared that the duty of communication between the party and candidates on the one hand and the voting public on the other is one that is protected by the constitution.
“If any armed group of enforcers, whether within the police or outside of it, many are suspecting is behind this act of intimidation, think they can break our spirit, they are mistaken. We are not going to give up,” he affirmed. (Leadership)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comment