Police plan arrest of El-Rufai, others, APC alleges

The All Progressives Congress Campaign Council in Kaduna State on Friday alleged that the State Police Command has perfected plans to arrest its governorship candidate, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, and some other key members in the state.

Other key figures of the APC to be arrested by the police, according to the party’s campaign council, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, are a former Secretary to the State Government, who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the APC, Lawal Samaila(Yakawada), and a former State Commissioner for Finance and Kaduna North Senatorial candidate, Sulieman Hunkuyi.

The party said the command had already served a summons on the trio to appear before it today(Friday) and report to the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the CID in the state.

However, the state’s police command’s Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Zubairu, denied that command had planned to arrest the APC chiefs, neither had they been invited.

“It is not true. If there is any arrest, I should know. We are where we are deploying our officers and men in their beats,” he said.

But the APC spokesman in a statement, alleged that the party’s chiefs were served a summons and that the intent behind requesting three top leaders of the APC to report on Friday, a day to the presidential election, was to arrest them.

He said the pretext the police were employing “is a petition about destruction of billboards in Zaria, an act for which the APC has been the victim.

The party noted that it was part of a campaign to frame indict the opposition on trumped-up criminal charges, for actions for which the APC had been victimised.

He said the police in the state should refrain from the act, stressing that already the party “has indeed notified the police that there is an ongoing court action against the police on the events in Zaria, at the Federal High Court, Kaduna judicial division in suit no FHC/KD/CS/48/2015.”

The statement stated, “As part of plans to arrest APC leaders on the eve of elections, the police today (Friday) in Kaduna asked Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and two other APC bigwigs to report in their offices. Summoned to appear along with El-Rufai are Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi and Lawal Samaila Yakawada.

“El-Rufai is the APC governorship candidate for Kaduna State. Hunkuyi is the senatorial candidate for Kaduna North and chairman of the APC Kaduna state campaign council.

“Yakawada, who was Secretary to the State Government in the Patrick Yakowa’s government, is a senior member of the APC campaign council.