Borno State governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima has written to the
Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, distancing himself from
campaign posters bearing his picture and that of Imo State governor,
Owelle Rochas Okorocha, aspiring for the 2019 presidency and requested
for an immediate investigation into the sources of the posters.
The governor said while he was not worried about whatever political
objective was aimed by those who “fraudulently” produced and pasted the
posters in many parts of the FCT and Kaduna on Sunday, his major concern
was that sponsors of the posters had a “wicked agenda” of undermining
the current cordial relationship between the Borno State government and
Buhari led administration in which they are “working together in the
last one year for the collective goal of ending the Boko Haram
insurgency”.
Shettima’s letter alluded to the bad relationship between his
government during his first term and the Goodluck Jonathan
administration, from 2011 to 2015, attributed to some political groups
that worked against collaboration between his government and Jonathan
administration in fighting the Boko Haram insurgency thereby making the
insurgents to grow stronger.
The letter to the IGP with reference number BOSLO/ABJ/14/IV/407 and
signed by Permanent Secretary in charge of the Borno State Government
House and Security, Mr Ahmed Sanda was dated May 29, 2016, and
dispatched from the Governor’s Office.
The letter reads in part, “I have been directed by His Excellency,
the Executive Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima to bring to the
IGP’s notice, dozens of fraudulently produced posters bearing his name
and picture claiming he is aspiring for the 2019 Presidency. The posters
have been pasted on some routes in Abuja and Kaduna.
“Governor Kashim Shettima regards this development as a highly
mischievous plot that is aimed at destabilising the emerging peace in
Borno State through creation of unnecessary political tension while on
the other hand it might aim at creating gap between the Borno State
government and the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration (which
just marked it’s first year in office) with a wicked agenda of
undermining the current cohesion between the two arms of government
working together in the last one year for the collective goal of ending
the Boko Haram insurgency.
“From a different information we have gathered, the posters are
suspected to be the handiwork of a particular group of politicians
trying to set the Borno State government and the APC in the state
against the national headquarters of the APC and the federal government
so as to lay a ground for a plan by the group of politicians to join the
APC in Borno State and hijack the party’s machinery.”
Also, the letter requested that the Inspector General of Police
authorizes an immediate investigation to establish the source of the
posters and the purpose for which the plot is meant with appropriate
steps taken to arrest and prosecute those behind the posters under
relevant provisions of the law.
source: Leadership