No plan to arrest Ekweremadu – Police

The police high command last night denied alleged plans to arrest Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu.

Force Assistant Spokesman CSP Abayomi Shogunle yesterday said that the issue of arrest of a Senator does not arise as the Police observes the norms of democratic principles.

According to Shogunle, a Senator wrote a petition to the IGP that the rules of the house was changed so as to pave the way for the election of Ekweremdu.

Based on the petition, he said, the IGP directed the DIG Force CID to investigate the matter.

Consequently Shogunle disclosed that after the preliminary investigations the Force CID wrote to the Clerk of the National Assembly to arrange the time and place for police investigators to meet with some Senators for interrogations and up till thw rime of diling this repoet 9.50 pm, the Clerk has not eesponded to demand od the police.

Also the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it has nothing to do with the reported police’s invitation of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, over which the PDP has released an outlandish statement containing all sorts of imaginary claims.

In its own statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by the National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the party neither wrote a petition to the police nor is it aware that any petition was written against the Deputy Senate President.

And that “if, as the PDP claims, the petition concerns alleged altering of the Senate’s Standing Rules on the process of electing Presiding Officers, that is a clear case of forgery which the police have a duty to investigate. Questioning the right of the police to carry out their duties in this regard amounts to intimidating the security agency.

”Forgery is a crime that is being regularly investigated by the police, and it beggars belief that such investigation will now be interpreted to mean that Nigeria is descending into dictatorship or that democracy and the enjoyment of personal freedoms are now endangered. These claims by the scaremongering PDP are far fetched and preposterous,” it said.

APC said if indeed there is a petition against Senator Ekweremadu, he should gladly heed the invitation by the police so he can clear his name, adding that no one is above the law.

”President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly said that at every point, the law must be supreme and everyone must respect the law, if the nation’s democratic system is to survive.

Extrapolating a police invitation of anyone, no matter his status, to mean the onset of dictatorship is itself an invitation to lawlessness and anarchy, which permeated the long but ineffective rule of the PDP,” the party said.