Controversy has continued to dog the leadership tussle in All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as the Alhaji Sadeeq Masala group has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) complaining against the conduct of the Investigating Police Officers (IPOs) in the perjury case in the party.
The Chief Victor Umeh faction had petitioned the IGP claiming that signatures of some members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party were forged by the Masala group in order to fraudulently secure the two-third membership required in the party’s constitution to convene a NEC meeting if the national chairman of the party refuses to do so.
Even after the officers in the Umeh faction forwarded the petition, the Masala group which was insisting that nobody forged the claimed signature, asked the IGP to prosecute the same party officers for perjury, insisting that they lied on oath in the affidavit attached to the petition sent in by the Umeh group.
When the media broke the report on the contents of the Police Forensic report which was issued by the Police Forensic Department and signed by one Ralph Onwuzuruigbo, a Police Forensic expert, it was learnt that the IPOs in the Force Criminal Investigation Department were still inviting people to testify on the matter, including journalists who had published the story.
Based on the information, the Massala group on Monday sent a petition to the IGP asking him to call the IPOs to order as they were over-reaching the finality of the Police Forensic Report which had allegedly cleared anybody of forgery of signature.
In the petition signed by Dr. Ifedi Okwenna, national secretary, “it it therefore with a great sense of responsibility and grave concern that I address this petition to you against the official conduct of the IPOs in the case of perjury we brought against Hon. Jolly Ngbor and eight others in the on-going leadership crises in APGA.
“The conduct of these officers is indeed constituting a great threat to the image and integrity of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and may eventually ridicule the force as a public institution of record.
Listing 19 points to justify their claims, the Masalla APGA insisted that the after all the processes in investigating the matte were completed with the Police Forensic Report obtained, they were surprised at the sudden twist in the case.
According to them, after the Police obliged “us a copy of the Police Forensic Report after we had requested for a certified copy of the report, on October 30, a copy of the report addressed to our Dr. Brerakforth O. Abraham dated October 23rd was given to “around 8th October, to was given us by Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)- ‘D’ Department, Forensic Laboratory, Force Headquarters, Abuja.
“As the report was detailed and explicit enough, we waited for the Investigation Department to swing into action and then to prosecute the matter as they earlier informed us.
“Nothing came from them and nothing have come from them since then. Our investigations showed that they were confused as the report was never what they anticipated.
“To our surprise, we were told that five police officers from FCID were in Lagos on Monday 5th October to ‘investigate the Forensic Experts’ and to find out why they came up with a report not anticipated by them. Their activities sparked up a major disagreement between them and the Forensic Police Experts.
“I was surprised at the extent this officers were and are still going to ensure they discredit the forensic report, simply because it did not favour their interested party,” Okwenna stated.
