The Ogun State Police Command has reacted to the news that former Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun handed over a large number of firearms and ammunition to the Force before Nigeria’s 2019 general election.
DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, the spokesman, in a statement, said the noise over the matter was needless as there was nothing secret about it.
The Police explained that: “On the 28th of May 2019, the then Governor of Ogun State Senator Ibikunle Amosun FCA CON, invited the Commissioner of Police, Cp Bashir Makama to come and take delivery of some ammunition and other items which has been in the State government armoury.
“Upon the invitation, the Commissioner of Police with his management team moved to the Governor’s office at Oke-Imosan where the items were presented to them in public.
“The items handed over to the Command on that day were: one armoured personnel carrier (APC) vehicle, One million four hundred and forty thousand, four hundred and twenty (1,440,420) rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, two hundred and seventy one units of amoured vests and 3 ballistic helmets.
“Immediately the Command took delivery of the items, the Force Headquarters was notified via an official signal as a normal procedure and standard practice of reporting any incident.
”It is worthy of note that not a single AK 47 riffle was among the items handed over to the Command by the former governor, the much talked about 1,000 rifles were those purchased by the State government and handed over to the Command in the year 2012.
“The former governor only made reference to it during the handing over on 28th May 2019. It is, therefore, a thing of surprise to read that 1,000 AK47 rifles were handed over to the police in addition to four million rounds of ammunition.
“The outfit also mischievously accused the Command and the former governor of engaging in conspiracy of silence whereas, it was the writer who rather than waiting for the response to his questionnaire rushed to the press in total violation of ethic of journalism.
“Also, the baseless assertion of the writer that the CP was making frantic efforts to inform the Force headquarters ahead of the publication to avoid been in trouble if the headquarters learnt about the incident through media only exist in the imagination of the writer as the office of Inspector General of Police has been duly informed even before the writer got wind of the matter.”
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