The spokesman for former military President Ibrahim
Babangida, Kassim Afegbua, yesterday reported at the Police Headquarters 48
hours after being declared wanted over the controversial press statement he
issued on behalf of his principal.
Afegbua, who arrived at the Louis Edet House of the Nigeria
Police Force, Abuja, at about 10:10 a.m., and accompanied by his legal team,
led by his lead counsel, Kayode Ajulo, said: “The former president is fully
behind me and he had been in touch with me. There’s no need for him to say
anything more than he had already said.”
He said Babangida was surprised at the declaration by the
police authorities, wondering why they could do that to him as if he was a
criminal.“It will even interest you to know that when I was declared wanted on
Channels TV and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), my boss, IBB, was the one
who called me and said why are they declaring you wanted? Are you a criminal?
And we laughed over it.
“He also asked if I was on the run and if I have been given
invitation and he said, okay, that is interesting. My boss said he heard on the
news that they talked about defamation of character and he asked whose
character have you defamed?
“So, I am very much in touch with him and I am not doing
anything out of the blues. He is a man I have been with for the past 14 years
as spokesman. Even when I went to serve in my state, I was still very much in
touch with him. I have said it before that I am part and parcel of him, we are
family and so I don’t have any cause to worry over anything.
“I am only here personally because I was declared wanted. I
am not on the run, I am not a fugitive to the law and as a responsible
Nigerian, I feel it was unwise on the part of the police to declare me wanted
when I have not been formally invited. So, I am here to present myself. I am
here with my wife,
Afegbua, who arrived in respect of the development, was not
even known by police officers on duty at the reception desk as they kept asking
him to introduce himself.
Even after introduction and informing them that he was Kassim
Afegbua, the man declared wanted by the Force Headquarters through its
spokesman, Jimoh Moshood on Monday, the police officers were still asking him,
“Who declared you wanted?” “Are you on appointment?”Ajulo, who was infuriated
by the embarrassing questions, said: “Moshood was not ready to receive his
client, “then everyone should go back home.”
Meanwhile, when Moshood was alerted by the police officers of
Afegbua’s presence at the reception, he rushed in only to give directive that
journalists around should be chased away, fuming why they had come.
“All the reporters that came here with Kassim Afegbua today
did not ask for my permission,” he said. In another development, the
presidential aspirant of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2019
election, Dr. Thomas-Wilson Ikubese, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to
refrain from repressive tendencies that can truncate democracy in the country.
In a statement made available to journalists in Akure yesterday,
he flayed the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, for declaring
Afegbua wanted over the statement he issued on behalf of his boss.
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