Senate President Bukola Saraki is alleging threat to his life and those of his family in Ilorin, Kwara State.
He accused thugs allegedly sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the police as the brains behind the alleged move to eliminate him and his family.
Addressing reporters in Abuja yesterday, Saraki who doubles as the Director General of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Organisation claimed that on Thursday, APC thugs “shielded by policemen went to my family quarters in Agbaji in Ilorin, and vandalized houses, shops and inflicted wounds with matchetes on three people.”
He said: “All these destructions took place in the presence of policemen who came with them but watched without any care, as the APC thugs and supporters unleashed violence on our people.
“For me, personally, I believe the decision to attack people and properties in my family ancestral compound is a direct affront and attack on my person.
“And whatever signal these APC elements with support from the police believe they are sending is definitely sinister, uncivilized and unfortunate.”
The Senate President said the police continued to show undisguised hostility toward him and his supporters in the state.
The former Kwara State Governor said reports of the attacks were filed in relevant police stations in Ilorin, but expressed doubts that anything tangible and constructive would come out of the reports.
He stated further that as part of the plot, the police, under the directive of the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, on Thursday, commenced the transfer of Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) out of Kwara State.
Saraki called on Nigerians and the entire world to hold the IGP responsible should anything untoward happen to him and members of his family.
“While the police are free to take decisions on the deployment of their personnel, we found the postings in Kwara State strange and more than a mere coincidence,” he said.
“It should also be noted that IGP has posted three different Commissioners of Police to Kwara State in the last six months. In fact, the previous and current Commissioner of Police in the state got strict instructions from the IGP not to relate or engage with the Senate President”, Saraki added.
According to him, the usual practice has been that the Commissioner of Police personally ensures the security of the Senate President whenever he visits his home state.
He said all his predecessors in office were accorded that security cover whenever they visited their home states and that he also enjoyed it in his first year in office from 2015 to 2016.
Saraki expressed apprehension over his personal safety as the ward to ward electioneering campaign is about to begin across the state.
Said he, “We need to make it clear to the entire world that now that ward to ward campaign is about to begin in the state and I am set to participate in that grassroots campaign, as I have always done, nobody is sure what instructions Mr. Idris has given to the police command in the state.
“Thus, the entire world should hold the IGP responsible if anything untoward happens to members of my family and myself”.
Deploring the role of the IGP in the entire plot, Saraki continued, “Do not forget that before now, this same IGP has tried several tricks to implicate me in some criminal charges.
“First, he arrested some cultists and was about to compel them to claim they worked for me. We exposed the trick early enough and the media also pointed out holes in his story. He quickly withdrew that.
“Later, he went on to the Offa robbery case and politicized the investigation in order to rope me. In the process of forcing suspects to implicate me, the principal suspect died in their custody.”
