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31st January, 2017
The Inspector-General of Police
Nigeria Police Force HQs
Louis Edet House
Abuja
Sir,
PETITION AGAINST SENATOR DINO MELAYE FOR CONSPIRACY TO INCITE A VIOLENT PROTEST IN KOGI STATE, COMMIT MULTIPLE BREACHES OF THE PUBLIC PEACE AND GENERALLY DISRUPT LAW AND ORDER
I am the Secretary to the Kogi State Government, and I do hereby make this formal Petition on her behalf with the consent and upon the directive of His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State.
This Complaint is made against one Senator Dino Melaye, a member of the Senate of Federal Republic of Nigeria representing Kogi West Senatorial District of Kogi State, along with other persons, known and unknown, who act in collusion with him.
The names of other persons whom we have confirmed as acting in concert with Dino Melaye to execute the incidents against which we petition you herein are as follows:
Alhaji Haddi Ametuo, Absconding State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State.
Abdullahi Bello, Former Speaker, Kogi House of Assembly.
Tom Ohikere, Former Commissioner in Kogi State.
Austin Usman Okai.
The Administration of his Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State came into Office on January 27, 2016. Mr. Dino Melaye was at the time an ardent follower and supporter of the Governor and was deeply involved in the transition programmes.
Thereafter, he vehemently disagreed with some of the Administration’s decisions, especially on the right to influence appointment into Cabinet and other offices, as well as the Governor’s insistence on applying state funds to purely public purposes.
Dissatisfied with the realities of the New Direction Agenda of Governor Yahaya Bello, Dino parted ways with Administration and transformed into a virulent and malicious critic, severally calling for public uprisings against the Kogi State Government in inflammatory advertorials and publications.
However, and most alarmingly, Senator Dino Melaye and those in league with him have taken their fomentation of trouble from mere inciting comments in the media to physical meetings where they conspire to plan, fund, and recruit different groups, especially labour and students to flood the streets of Lokoja and other major cities in Kogi State with their members to protest alleged misgovernance.
The real intention from information unearthed by us is to infiltrate the crowd of innocent protesters with hired assassins and thugs brought in from other parts of the nation who have been given direct instructions to maim and kill innocent protesters in order to trigger international condemnation of the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Administration of Governor Yahaya Bello.
The real leadership of the students and labour unions have reiterated their support of the Yahaya Bello Administration in Kogi State, renewed their commitment to a functional and corruption-free Civil Service which guarantees career development for Civil Servants and uninterrupted School Calendars. These are direct outcomes of the ongoing Staff Screening and Verification Exercise in Kogi State, but the Dino Group continues to use the Exercise as their only tool for trying to create disaffection.
Dino Melaye and his co-conspirators had held meetings in furtherance of their conspiracy on January 20, 2017 and February 14, 2017. The following authentic Students and Labour leaders in Kogi State were invited to one or all of these and other meetings by Dino Melaye group where attempts were made to entice them with budgets to pull their members onto the streets:
Comrade Onu Edoka – Chairman, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Kogi State.
Comrade Ahmed Shehu Usman – National President, National Association of Kogi State Students (NAKOSS).
Philip Omepa Shaibu – President, Student Union Government, Kogi State University (KSU).
They are willing to corroborate this fact.
In dissociating real students in Kogi State from Dino’s planned protests, the National Association of Nigerian Students, Joint Campus Committee (NANS, JCC) Kogi Axis, an umbrella body representing all the tertiary institutions in the state has gone a step further to hold a Press Conference last week at which they distanced themselves from any planned protest in Kogi State for now, and warned against same.
We therefore wonder from where Dino and his Group have mobilised the alleged ‘student and labour’ groups which they are sponsoring for their planned protest slated to commence from Monday, the 21st of February, 2017 and continuing raging until their objectives of utter breakdown of law and order were achieved. It is obvious that thugs, miscreants and hired assassins are being organised and incentivised to have a field day causing chaos in Kogi State. These people are proven to have no links to true labour or student unionism. We urge that you act to stop them before it is too late.
Please recall that the Inspector-General of Police conferred an Award of Excellent Leadership and Efforts In Security in Kogi State on Governor Yahaya Bello about a fortnight ago. This Award angered Dino Melaye and many other opposition figures in Kogi State, who view it as an endorsement of Governor Bello’s good governance in Kogi State. They have spoken bitterly against the Award in the Press and other fora, denouncing the person and office of the Inspector-General of Police in the process.
With the new information at our disposal on the agenda at those meetings, especially the later one, we now wonder if the sudden upsurge in kidnappings and other violent crimes since the conferment of that Award on the Governor of Kogi State is not correlated with the attempts of the Dino group to discredit the IGP. The kidnap of Mr. Mike Ejiofor, a former Director in the DSS and the storming of a Police Station in Okene in which two officers and a prominent community leader were killed are some of the suspicious incidents which have trailed the Award. We urge you to scrutinise the correlations, if any.
We also urge you to remember that the Ministry of Information and Culture, through the Honourable Minister himself, released a security warning for vigilance following the migration of Boko Haram elements into Kogi State. We also have intelligence that the planned protest is designed to gather many innocent Kogites, especially students, in one place where they can be easily targeted in multitudes by suicides bombers earlier positioned at strategic places. We petition you to please explore this angle seriously to avoid such an incident as it will have negative global effects on the entire Nigerian polity.
We also wish to inform you that the Department of State Security (DSS) recently alerted the Kogi State Government of plans to bomb the newly built Revenue House in Lokoja, Kogi State. Recall that the Building which was commissioned by the Sultan of Sokoto on January 27, 2017 was vehemently condemned by Dino Melaye and his group in the Press. They also denounced the Sultan of Sokoto as executing an alleged Islamic Agenda in Kogi State in connivance with Governor Bello. We urge you to find out why that same building is reported by the Intelligence community as now targeted for bombing by terrorists. What is their link with Dino Melaye? Is he their spokesperson?
We therefore urge you to look deeper into these uncanny ‘coincidences’. It is our Petition that these things are related, and if you crack one, you will crack the rest.
In conclusion, it is crystal clear that the security atmosphere at the moment makes it absolutely ill-advised to hold any street protest for any reason for now in Kogi State. It is clear that the intentions of Dino Melaye and his co-conspirators have gone beyond citizens’ legal rights to dissent and fair comments, and has, knowingly or unknowingly, crossed over to conspiracy to commit mass murder, criminality and the disruption of the social order.
Over and above any orchestrated coincidences however, the Kogi State Government hereby petitions you to deploy the maximum resources of your Offices to nip such demonic plans in the bud and ensure that no protest holds in Kogi State until you can certify that the security imperatives permit a public mobilisation of citizens.
We have also made this same petition to the Presidency, the Office of the National Security Adviser as well as the Department of State Services. It is our hope and prayer that individual and interagency collaboration will be triggered which will input any and every effort to spare our people from avoidable deaths and mayhem.
We look forward to your usual prompt and decisive actions in this matter.
You are appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
AYOADE, FOLASHADE ARIKE, PH.D
Secretary to Kogi State Government
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