Bauchi: Police Advise Gadi, Gamawa to Stay Away

Written by This Day Saturday, 03 July 2010

Bauchi Stste Police Command has advised sitting Deputy Governor, Hon Babayo Garba Gamawa and the reinstated Deputy Governor, Alhaji Mohammed Garba Gadi to stay away from the office pending the final determination of all their cases.

Also yesterday the Bauchi High Court 4, which reinstated Gadi, struck out the motion for stay of execution brought before it by the Bauchi State government and other applicants.

Addressing journalists in his office yesterday, Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Danlami Yar’Adua explained that the decision to ask the two deputy governors to stay away from the office was based on the need to have peace in the state because “if the logjam is allowed to continue it may lead to breach of the peace.”

Yar’Adua added that the decision was not taken by the state Police Command, but “it was a collective decision taken by the security operatives in the state including police, military, SSS, NSCDC in the presence of all the contenders at a meeting held at the state headquarters of the SSS. It was done so that there will be peace in the state that is why the office is locked.”

The police boss stressed that his command did not instruct any police man to stop anyone from entering his office, saying “the primary concern of the police is to see that there is peace in the state and we will do everything within the law to ensure that peace reigns.”

He contimued: “We are therefore appealing to all those involved in the matter to please respect the law and abide by it. We have all the court papers which have been forwarded to the legal department of the force headquarters for proper legal advice on the step to be taken by us.” 

He also explained that his command did not give Gadi Police escort as is widely insinuated, but “based on a petition by his lawyers that his life was in danger, we gave him two armed plainclothes policemen and two uniformed policemen to be on duty in house 24 hours.
 
We did not ask any police man to escort him to the office,” just as he added that he will not withdraw policemen from providing security to all government establishments in the state because of the mix-up that occurred.

Meanwhile, Justice Haruna Tsanmani of the High Court 4 struck out the motion on notice for the stay of execution of the courts judgment delivered last week Friday reinstating Gadi as the deputy governor of the state, the Attorney-General of the State, Barrister Mustapha Suleiman had earlier on applied for the withdrawal of the motion filed before the court on the June 25.

Though he did not give any reason for the withdrawal of the suit, the court went ahead to grant the application and thereby struck-out the case with a N10000 cost to the respondents whose lawyers led by Mamman Mike Osuma SAN had earlier on opposed the application for withdrawal because according to him they had already filed a counter motion before the court.