The All Progressives Congress has strongly condemned the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, for saying he does not recognize Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
APC also slammed the Police chief for being economical with the truth in his defence of “the real reasons the police invaded the National Assembly.”
In a statement on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party noted that by refusing to recognize a Speaker, who was elected by members of the House of Representatives, and has neither been impeached by those who elected him nor removed by the Court, “the police boss has thumbed his nose at the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The party said, ”As the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Tambuwal is the symbol of authority of the House and our country’s number four citizen. By saying he does not recognize him as the Speaker, the IG has also indicated he does not recognise the entire House of Representatives.
“For a man, who was not elected by anybody to make this impertinent assertion about elected representatives of the people, is tantamount to treason. Mr. Abba has shunned all pretenses to neutrality, professionalism and decency and he is no longer fit to occupy the important office of the IG.”
APC wondered at what stage the IG realised the issue involving the Speaker was sub judice, accusing the police boss of constituting “himself into a court of law, which is the only body that is constitutionally empowered to make any pronouncement on the fate of the Speaker, and unilaterally withdrew the Speaker’s security detail.”
The party said Nigerians were aware that Abba, by himself, could not have acted the way and manner he had done.
”But the truth is that he is dancing to a drum of perfidy being beaten by his masters at the Aso Rock Villa. In the process, he has acted in contravention of his oath of office,” the statement read.
APC accused the IG of turning the truth on its head by saying he barred the Speaker and other members of the House from entering the National Assembly because Governor (Rotimi) Amaechi and the APC were planning to invade the Assembly as well as the Aso Rock and the Police Headquarters.
The party added, ”Shortly after the incident, Police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said the police acted the way it did because it got intelligence report that ‘hoodlums and thugs’ were coming to invade the House.
“Now, the police boss said it was because Gov. Amaechi and the APC were coming to invade the House. This is a most shameful lie from the highest police officer in the land, and it is a terrible dent on the image of the police under Mr. Abba.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday described as immaterial the reasons given by the DSS for invading the Data Centre of the party in Lagos on Saturday.
The opposition party said the reasons were plainly implausible and witless.
Speaking at a press conference held on Monday in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the security service has become a shameless apologist of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The party chieftain wondered why a self-respectful intelligence gathering security outfit will rely on beer-parlour gossips in carrying out its onerous responsibility, especially in a politically-charged environment like what prevails in the country at present.
He said, ‘’The spokesperson for the DSS said the organization had put the building housing the Data Centre under surveillance, and that it only acted after it was convinced that ‘unwholesome activities’ were taking place. What hogwash! If indeed they put the place under surveillance, would they not have been able to establish that it is an APC Data Centre? Even if they were not sure, what prevents them from obtaining a court order permitting them to enter and search the building instead of carrying out a Gestapo-like operation? Are security agencies above the law.
‘’To highlight their crudity and lack of professionalism, they had to go and arrest one of the staffers who was not on duty just to get the password to the servers they vandalized and took away. This speaks volumes about the limitation of the DSS’ intelligence gathering ability.
“If they had broken into the Boko Haram computer, would they have gone to arrest Abubakar Shekau or any of his commanders to give them the password to it? Nigerians can now see why no progress has been made in using intelligence gathering to root out the evil Boko Haram,’’ it said.
According to him, the real reasons the service broke into the offices of the party were to deprive it of its membership data base so it can no longer contact its members, and also to aid and abet the rigging of the 2015 elections by the PDP.
‘’With the membership data base now in their possession, it has become easy for them to collude with INEC to know which areas we are strong so they can scuttle the distribution of the Permanent Voters Cards there and, during the elections, to also deprive such areas of voting materials, “ he added.