Zamfara State Police Command has arrested a political ally of former Governor Abdulazeez Yari Abubakar Alh Abubakar Dantabawa and sixteen others over allegation of meeting with some repentant bandits with an intention of recruiting them back to their former evil acts.
The arrest of the APC supporters this weekend has generated tension as party supporters took to the street to protest what they termed as act of injustice by the State Police Command on APC supporters.
The party supporters were allegedly teargassed at the headquarters of the State Police Command in Gusau when they attempted to access its premises were the politicians were allegedly kept.
It took much time of hited arguement between the police on duty at the state force headquarters and party supporters led by the State Chairman Lawal M. Liman and former member of the Federal House of Representatives Aminu Sani Jaji before few of them could be allowed access to the state police headquarters.
The arrested APC supporters were later released on condition which is not yet clear but the party leadership was asked to return on Monday by 11:00pm to lodge their formal complaint to the State Police Command.
Confirming the incident, the State Police Command Public Relations Officer SP Shehu Muhammad said the arrest was actually made based on some intelligent reports received by the command on the plan meeting by Abu Dantabawa and some of those arrested with some repentant bandits.
He denied that, the insinuation that, the arrest is politically motivated saying, the command has acted professionally based on the intelligence information received.
On why the APC members were denied access to the state Police Command, Shehu Muhammad said, there is no way a political crowd of that nature can be allow in to a secured area like state police headquarters for security reasons.
He said if they are at the police Command to lodge complaint they have the right but the procedure for lodging complaint has to be followed.
“Police are ready to receive complaint from anybody be it individual or group but it has to be lodge in an orderly manner” Shehu added.
