OFFA ROBBERIES: Police is hiding something —Kwara AG

The Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Kwara State, Mr Kamaldeen Ajibade, SAN, has said the police is hiding something in their investigation into the Offa robberies.

The AG was responding to an allegation by the police that he, Ajibade was willfully delaying the prosecution of the case of suspects arrested in connection with the robberies.

Ajibade, who chronicled all his office had done to ensure that the suspects are charged to court, said in an interview with journalists in his office in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, that the police are yet to tell Nigerians the truth.

Ajibade said: “I want to confirm to you that a letter was written from the office of the Director of the Public Prosecutions of the Federation under the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.

“My office received the letter on August 27, this year and the content of the letter had to do with the investigation report on the Offa robberies and directed my office to take up the prosecution of the matter.

“Immediately we received this letter on the 6th of September this year, we wrote a letter through the office of the state Director of Public Prosecutions to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation requesting that they provide us the original case diary in the Offa robberies and also to transfer the suspects to the Kwara State Police Command.

“We waited for about three weeks and did not hear anything from them.

“I then took it upon myself to personally meet with the AIG Legal, one David Ogbodo, and I requested that the original case diary be sent to Kwara to enable us to start the prosecution of the matter.

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“I also requested him to send all the suspects to Kwara State and he told me that he had directed the man in charge, one Abba Kyari, to do so.

“We waited for another week; we did not get anything from them. So, I directed my DPP to liaise with the police this time round. He liaised with the police both in the state and also with Abbah Kyari. They promised every day that they would send the suspects to Kwara and the original case diary.

“You cannot prosecute under the law without having the original case diary. You cannot even file a charge without the case diary and in filing a charge you have to exhibit what we call proof of evidence.

“This proof of evidence entails the statements of witnesses. Statements of witnesses; in this sense, we are talking of the people that investigated the Offa robberies.

“We don’t have all these with us. We don’t have the suspects on the ground; we don’t have the witnesses on the ground. How do you file a charge? How do you prosecute people you cannot see?

“So, I see this as a cheap blackmail from the police and at this instance, they have something to hide which they have yet to tell Nigerians about this case.

“I am sure at the end of the day Nigerians will know what has transpired in this matter. That is why the police are now passing the buck. They can now see that Nigerians have started asking questions that if you arrested suspects since April this year and they have yet to be charged to court; then there must be something about it.”

 

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