{"id":10934,"date":"2018-07-26T09:11:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T09:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=10934"},"modified":"2018-07-26T09:11:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T09:11:14","slug":"offa-robbery-agf-malami-clears-saraki-says-police-lack-evidence-against-senate-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=10934","title":{"rendered":"Offa Robbery: AGF Malami clears Saraki, says police lack evidence against Senate President"},"content":{"rendered":"

By PREMIUM TIMES<\/strong>.
\nNigeria\u2019s Attorney-General, Abubakar Malami, has told the police that there was no evidence that linked Senate President Bukola Saraki and Kwara State Governor Abdulfattah Ahmed to the armed robbery attack that left 31 persons dead in Offa, Kwara State, in April, PREMIUM TIMES can now confirm.
\nMr Malami advised in a June 22 letter to the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, that the police would need to ramp up their investigation and also painstakingly explore all critical areas before identifying the Senate President as a suspect in the carnage, much less filing charges against him.
\nYusuf Abdulwahab, Mr Ahmed\u2019s chief of staff who was amongst state officials arrested for allegedly conspiring with the prime suspects, was also cleared, with the prosecutor saying \u201cno evidence is credible enough to sustain any charge based on any offence known to law against him.\u201d
\nThe attorney-general\u2019s office said only six prime suspects should be charged to court for armed robbery and murder which could draw capital punishment upon conviction. Olalekan Alabi, a personal assistant to Mr Ahmed, was also recommended for trial, but only on lesser charges of illegal possession of arms.
\nMr Saraki hinted at the existence of the letter on Monday night as part of a fierce response to\u00a0Mr Idris\u2019 latest summon\u00a0to him. The Senate President said the invitation, which he was asked to honour by 8:00 a.m. today, was unnecessary because the Director of Public Prosecutions had already informed the police that there were no sufficient bases to keep dragging him into the armed robbery investigation.
\n\u201cI am aware that following a request made by the Police on June 13, 2018 to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of the Federation had written a legal advice dated June 22, 2018, in which he stated on page 5, paragraph (f) that \u201cFor the Senate President and the Kwara State Governor, this office is unable to establish from the evidence in the interim report a nexus between the alleged office and the suspects,\u201d Mr Saraki said in the Monday night statement.
\nAt least five banks were raided and substantial amount of cash carted away when armed robbers stormed the polytechnic town on April 5. The police initially said\u00a017 people were killed in the attack, including nine police officers, but continued to revise the figure upwards, apparently as some of those receiving treatments for critical wounds were passing on.
\nPREMIUM TIMES obtained a copy of the letter on Tuesday, which was signed for Mr Malami by DPP Mohammed Umar and confirmed exactly what Mr Saraki disclosed.
\nMr Umar examined the crime and the suspects the police lined up in their first information report submitted to the attorney-general\u2019s office for prosecution, and came up with legal and technical suggestions about how to properly build a case that would not be discarded at a glance when the potential criminal trial gets underway.
\n\u201cFor the Senate President and the Kwara State Governor, this office is unable to establish from the evidence in the interim report a nexus between the alleged offence and the suspects,\u201d the prosecutor said.
\nAt least\u00a012 suspects were arrested\u00a0at multiple locations within the first week of the attack. Six weeks later, the police said they had\u00a0taken two more suspects into custody, including the alleged mastermind Michael Adikwu, after a composite CCTV picture of the suspects was\u00a0circulated by the police.
\nThe police\u00a0identified a picture one of the robbery suspects took with Mr Saraki\u00a0at his daughter\u2019s wedding last year as a key evidence that linked the Senate President to both the suspects and the crime.The police also said one of the vehicles used by the suspects had a dummy number plate with Mr Saraki\u2019s name inscribed on it.
\nAlso, some officials of Kwara State government were also arrested and one of the vehicles allegedly used in the robbery was found in the home of a commissioner. All the state officials denied allegations, and some were later released without charges.
\nMr Saraki was initially invited for questioning in early June, but this approach was later abandoned by the police who asked him to turn in a written response to the allegations instead. The police had been largely mum about the matter, until the sudden invitation that was circulated.
\nIn his statement Monday, Mr Saraki said he denied all allegations of involvement in the planning or execution of the robbery in his June 7 statement to the police. .
\nThe Senate President said the police were a key actor in an elaborate, federal government-backed scheme aimed at railroading him into remaining at the ruling All Progressives Congress.
\n\u201cThis plot aimed at compelling me and my associates to stay in a party where members are criminalised without just cause, where injustice is perpetrated at the highest level and where there is no respect for constitutionalism is an exercise in futility and it will fail,\u201d Mr Saraki said.
\nThe scenes that played out throughout Tuesday largely confirmed Mr Saraki\u2019s fears that the police were being used to executive a devious political gambit,\u00a0PREMIUM TIMES found.
\nThe\u00a0Senate President had recently been freed\u00a0of false and anticipatory assets declaration charges after a lengthy trial that lasted nearly three years..He insisted throughout his trial that the charges were politically-motivated and would not stand.
\nThe first indication that the robbery investigation might have been politicised emerged when the\u00a0Kwara State judiciary demanded\u00a0that the suspects who were arrested and taken to Abuja over the case should be returned to the state. The institution said the state chief prosecutor had already concluded preliminary findings and had notified the court of a criminal proceeding into the case before the police abruptly seized the suspects.
\nWhile the suspects were being transferred to Abuja, Mr Saraki fired a preemptive short, alleging that\u00a0the police wanted to use the suspects to implicate him. After spending days in police custody, the suspects allegedly confessed that Mr Saraki was their sponsor.
\nMr Ahmed, whom the Senate President said tipped him off about the police ploy,\u00a0also strongly denied all allegations\u00a0he sponsored the suspects.
\nAuthorities in Kwara contradicted the alleged confession, saying all the suspects wrote statements following their arrest in Ilorin and none of them mentioned Mr Saraki, much less incriminating him.
\nFor the police to avoid a similar outcome with the latest allegations, they would need to work harder, the attorney-general\u2019s office warned.
\nThe three-pronged blanks that the police must sufficiently fill before bringing charges against Messrs Saraki and Ahmed include whether the planning and the execution of the robbery attack were carried out at their instance, knowledge or approval; whether the weapons used for the robbery attack were supplied by either of the top politicians; and any other areas that may assist in establishing that they were aiding and abetting criminal activities.
\nThe prosecutor also said the police would need to conduct deeper investigation before any charges could be brought against Mr Abdulwahab.
\nPolice spokesperson Jimoh Moshood did not return PREMIUM TIMES requests for comments between Tuesday and Wednesday. Mr Umar declined comments about whether the police have updated their findings since receiving his letter in June.
\nThe attorney-general\u2019s office used the larger parts of the letter to rubbish some of the facts submitted by the police and went on to offer tips on how to build a water-tight case against even the prime suspects.
\nThe six suspects recommended for trial were: Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Ibrahim, Salawudeen Azeez, Niyi Ogundiran and Mr Adikwu. The prosecutor said they should be charged with the offences of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery and culpable homicide punishable with death.
\nThe confession the suspects allegedly provided to the police could be used to build up evidence against them in court, the prosecutor said. He also suggested that items stolen by the robbers from the affected banks and other places would further aid in investigation, adding that ballistic tests and forensic examination should be conducted.
\nBut in a damning rebuke of the manner with which the police handled the investigation, the prosecutor said the particulars of the crime submitted against the suspects were contradictory.
\n\u201cThe weapons used in the attack were different from those allegedly carted away from the police armory,\u201d Mr Etsu said for instance.
\nIn another case, \u201cMichael Adikwu\u2019s voluntary statement was not attached to the file and should not be so,\u201d the prosecutor said.
\nCuriously, the prosecutor said the police should ensure that the suspects are available to face trial. This appears a subtle acknowledgement of the raging controversy around some of the suspects, especially Mr Adikwu who was\u00a0alleged to have been killed in custody.
\nMr Adikwu was reportedly dismissed as a police corporal following his arrest in 2012 on alleged criminal offences. He was charged to court in Kwara State for compromising police operations and releasing armed robbery suspects. He reportedly escaped from prisons in 2015 and joined armed robbery gangs.
\nIt was not immediately clear whether he was found guilty and convicted by the court or whether he escaped from prison while still in remand as his trial was underway. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately confirm whether he has a lawyer.
\nThe police fiercely rejected claims that Mr Adikwu had been killed in custody to hush details that could expose potential anti-Saraki conspiracy within the police, but declined repeated demands to parade him once again for Nigerians to know he is still alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By PREMIUM TIMES. Nigeria\u2019s Attorney-General, Abubakar Malami, has told the police that there was no evidence that linked Senate President Bukola Saraki and Kwara State Governor Abdulfattah Ahmed to the armed robbery attack that left 31 persons dead in Offa, Kwara State, in April, PREMIUM TIMES can now confirm. Mr Malami advised in a June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}