Melaye in police trouble again over alleged gun battle

Kogi West Senator Dino Melaye has countered the claim by the police that his security details repeatedly shot at policemen conducting “stop and search”.

He instead narrated how armed Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) operatives had tried to assassinate him in Kogi State.

First, Melaye had on Thursday thanked God on his Twitter handle for sparing his life from “over 20 bullets holes on my jeep”, which he claimed was fired at him by “combination of police, SARS and military” operatives.

Kogi State Police Command had in its response summoned Melaye, asking him to come and explain to the authorities why his security aides shot a police officer at a checkpoint in the state on Thursday, July 19, 2018.

The spokesperson of the Kogi Command, DSP William Aya, accused the senator of deliberately twisting the facts of the matter as it was his security aides who shot and injured a police sergeant first.

According to him, Melaye’s convoy had been flagged down by officers of the Anti-Robbery/Kidnapping Patrol Team on a stop-and-search operation when they were fired upon after some of the vehicles in the convoy refused to stop.

Meanwhile, in a statement on Saturday through his media assistant, Mr. Gideon Ayodele, Melaye gave details of how on the way back from Isanlu, Kogi State, armed Special Anti -Robbery Squad operatives allegedly stopped his car next to the vehicle of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps leading his convoy.

The statement read, “The police stopped the vehicle of the civil defence corps, arrested them and suddenly opened fire on my vehicle, including my back – up vehicle. We all had to run for dear life as they continued to shoot at my SUV and, apart from the officers of the NSCDC, there was no other security man in my convoy.

“This is happening in spite of my earlier letter to the Kogi State Police Command informing them of my plans to tour my constituency and commission my projects across the seven councils. My lawyer also wrote them (police) and they acknowledged the letters.”

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Also accusing the Kogi State Police Commissioner, Ali Janga, of not telling the truth of the matter, the Melaye added, “Nobody from my convoy engaged in gun battle with the police. The police alleged that it was the last vehicle in my convoy that contained security men and that they shot at the police. This is a big lie. If it was so, why was it that nobody was arrested?

“The vehicle they alleged was never shot and why was it that my car was next to civil defence vehicle that was attacked?”

Melaye, who had a tough experience in the hands of the police, a matter which is still in court, only recently lamented in a song on his social media handles, how his All Progressives Congress (APC) party, pirnished him during his travails in the hands of Nigerian Police.

 

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