• APC accuses accused of plot to blackmail Tinubu’s govt, seeks thorough police probe
Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo
An aide to Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State, Shakirulahi Babatunde, has allegedly kidnapped himself with the sole aim of extorting the state government.
But the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has lambasted the Adeleke government, alleging desperation to implicate the APC and heat up the polity with the fake kidnap of one of the special assistants to the governor.
It warned that the Nigeria Police Force should resist the attempt by the state government to bury the case.
Spokesperson to the governor, Olawale Rasheed, in a statement, said the state police command was already investigating the incident.
Rasheed debunked report that top officials in the Adeleke-led administration were working underground to pressure the police into dropping the matter.
According to him, “Our attention has been drawn to a reported case of self -kidnapping by one of the governor’s media aides, Shakirulahi Babatunde.
“We immediately want the public to know that the police are investigating the matter without any pressure from the state government,” Rasheed said in the statement.
He also debunked rumours making the rounds that the Chief of Staff, Kazeem Akinleye and other top government officials were working to prevent police from investigating the case.
While giving insight into the matter, he said, “It would be recalled that when the media aide sent a text message that he had been kidnapped, an incident report was immediately lodged with the police under the instruction of the Chief of Staff.
“The matter was further reported to the Anti Kidnapping Squad of Osun State Police Command, which swung into action as a signal of transparency and readiness for law enforcement.
“It was therefore falsehood from the pit of hell to assert that the Chief of Staff or any state official was trying to prevent the police from conducting investigation into a matter which the state government originally reported to the police service.
“We categorically denied the fake news that there were attempts by the state officials to bribe the police to sweep the matter under the carpet. Such reports are unfounded and baseless conjectures.
“Nobody in the government is attempting to bribe the police and the police have not received any kobo from state officials as libelously asserted in a publication.”
Meanwhile, the police have started investigating the matter. But the police authority has yet to make any public statement on the development as of the time of this report
However, the APC has stressed that Babatunde’s arrest had been announced by other officials of the state government through their individual social media handles, demonising and shifting the blame on the opposition APC as being responsible for the imaginary and false kidnap.
In a statement by Osun State APC Director of Information and Strategies, Mongaji Kola Olabisi, the party said luck ran against Babatunde and his accomplices when he was apprehended in his hideout by the police from Dugbe Divisional Police in Osogbo and was taken to custody where he confessed to the crime.