Nigeria Police Force alleedly apologised to IBB's spokesman

Nigeria Police Force allegedly apologises to IBB's spokesman

The Nigeria Police Force has apologised to Kassim Afegbua, the spokesman of Nigeria’s former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, for declaring him wanted.

The apology was tendered on Wednesday when Afegbua went to the Force Headquarters to turn himself in after he was declared wanted by the Police via a statement by the

 Force Public Relations Officer, Jimoh Moshood.

Afegbua was informed that all that the police wanted to achieve was to find out why there were two different statements in the name of Babangida in one day.

Moshood said the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, declared Afegbua wanted in connection with a statement he issued on behalf of Babangida on Sunday.

Mr. Afegbua arrived at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, accompanied by his lawyers and four journalists, including Samuel Ogundipe, a general assignment reporter for PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr. Ogundipe, who was assigned to run live updates of the event, was filming the arrival of Mr. Afegbua and his legal team, led by Kayode Ajulo, when the police officers on duty at the reception confiscated his phone.

The major part of Mr. Afegbua’s arrival that was captured by the reporter was when police officers were asking a man that had been declared wanted to introduce himself.

Mr. Afegbua told the officers that he was declared wanted and some of them asked: “by who”?

He then said it was the force public relations officer, Jimoh Moshood, that made the announcement.

Some of the officers then asked if he was on an appointment, and Mr. Ajulo interjected that if Mr. Moshood was not ready to receive his client, “then everyone should go back home.”

Update.

Mr Kazeem Afegbua, spokesman to the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, declared wanted by the Police, on Wednesday, stormed the Force Headquarters in Abuja, in a style with a team of lawyers and some of his family members.

Afegbua, who arrived the Lious Edet Force Headquarters’ House around 10:32 a.m. in the company of a team of lawyers from Barrister Kayode Ajulo’s Castle of Law Firms, told newsmen that he was not a fugitive which was the reason he decided to show up.

Afegbua was declared wanted by the police over a statement he issued on behalf of his principal, General Ibrahim Babangida, on Sunday.

Afegbua and his team on their arrival could not meet with the Commissioner of Police in Charge of Legal of the Force, Mr David Ibogbodo, who was said to have gone to court on an official assignment.

Consequently, Afegbua waited for almost two hours and when the CP legal eventually arrived, he was reportedly joined by ‎ the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) monitoring Team, who, together with him attended to Afegbua in a relaxed atmosphere.

It was gathered that at the meeting ‎which lasted about 15 minutes, Afegbua did not write any statement as expected, rather, the two officers reportedly apologised for declaring him wanted in the first instance and that it was a mixed up.

A source said that the two senior officers made it clear to Afegbua that he was not under arrest and that if the police had been able to get him on the phone to speak with him, the whole matter would not have been complicated as it turned out to be.

Earlier, Afegbua had spoken with newsmen where he registered his displeasure with the action of the police for declaring him wanted without extending an invitation letter to him and said that his ‎legal team was already handling the matter.

Afegbua, who stated that he was still at loss as to how the police arrived at a decision to declare him a wanted man when he was very much around, disclosed that it was ‎even his boss, General Babangida that called his attention to the police’s statement which declared him wanted and he demanded if he was a criminal.

According to him: “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 about it.

“My boss also asked if I was on the run and if I have been given an invitation and he said, okay, that is interesting. Who is complaining? He said he heard on the news that they talked about defamation of character, he said 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 fourteen years as his spokesman,  even when I went to serve in my state, I was still very much in touch with him.

Afegbua with his family members and friends at the Police Force headquarters in Abuja, on Wednesday, February 7, 2018