Abuja - The All Progressives Congress (APC) has distanced itself to the reported police invitation of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu amid allegations of irregularities culminating in his election last month.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had raised concern at the possible arrest of the legislator.
APC spokesperson, Lai Mohammed, said the party neither wrote a petition to the police nor was it aware that any petition was written against the Deputy Senate President.
“However, if, as the PDP claims, the petition concerns alleged altering of the Senate’s Standing Rules on the process of electing Presiding Officers, that is a clear case of
forgery which the police have a duty to investigate. Questioning the right of the police to carry out their duties in this regard amounts to intimidating the security agency.”
”Forgery is a crime that is being regularly investigated by the police, and it beggars belief that such investigation will now be interpreted to mean that Nigeria is descending into dictatorship or that democracy and the enjoyment of personal freedoms are now endangered. These claims by the scaremongering PDP are farfetched and preposterous,” Mohammed added.
APC said if indeed there was a petition against Ekweremadu, he should “gladly heed the invitation by the police so he can clear his name.”
“No is above the law,” Mohammed said.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly said that at every point, the law must be supreme and everyone must respect the law, if the nation’s democratic system is to survive. Extrapolating a police invitation of anyone, no matter his status, to mean the onset of dictatorship is itself an invitation to lawlessness and anarchy, which permeated the long but ineffective rule of the PDP.”