Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Umar Sanda, has reacted to alleged plans to kill the former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, after the lawmaker petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Baba.
He claimed that the suspect’s motivation for wanting to kill the congressman was because he had lost a home in the Tafawa Balewa incident, in which Dogara and 28 other people were implicated.
In his letter dated August 19, 2022, Dogara alleged that three police officers in Bauchi—Insp. Dakat Samuel, Insp. Auwalu Mohammed, and Barau Amos ‘Sarkin Yaki’—had planned to assassinate him and three other members of his constituency.
The CP stated: “We went after him after receiving discreet information that one of our officers was trying to sell a firearm. We first learned that he was transporting the guns inside of his automobile. We pursued him, caught him, and when we inquired who owned the automobile, he said that he was the owner. We looked through the car and found the weapons.
“We questioned him, ‘Are those our own firearms you’re trying to sell? Yes, he replied. He was taken into custody, and we began an investigation. During our inquiry, he pointed the finger at the man he was sharing a home with. In keeping with our findings, he claimed that someone in Tafawa Balewa approached him and claimed to be trying to buy a firearm.
Further inquiry resulted in the man’s arrest, and he allegedly revealed that he was looking to buy a weapon because his home and others’ homes were torched during the crisis that followed the Baba Peter Gonto monument in December 2021.
The CP said, “He gave names of certain people he wished to kill, including the former speaker in relation to the incident. We therefore started a research in that direction. He made a note that he had oversaw an audit of the police armoury in relation to the lost firearm there.
