‘I’m not one of his victims’ — Ishaku denies meeting Wadume

Darius Ishaku, governor of Taraba state, says he has never had anything to do with Hamisu Bala, suspected kidnap kingpin better known as Wadume.

The suspect, when rearrested had claimed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) gave him N13 million for the February presidential election, and he also defrauded Ishaku, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of N6 million. 

But the governor, in statement through Bala Dan-Abu, his spokesman, said he never gave such amount of money to Wadume. 

“We wish to state categorically that Governor Ishaku was never a victim of Wadume’s duplicity and never lost money to his antics,” he said. 

“We urge the general public to disregard Wadume’s confessions on the alleged defrauding of Governor Ishaku as the rantings of a drowning criminal.

“Governor Ishaku has never met the kidnap suspect and would not even recognise him if they were to meet today.

“Ishaku uses this opportunity to commend security agencies for promptly arresting Wadume, who is the reason behind the dastardly murder of three Police officers and one other person in Ibi earlier this month.

“Ishaku urged the security agencies to expand their dragnet to all the nooks and corners of Taraba State where the accomplices of Wadume and other criminal gangs may still be hiding, to arrest them and bring them to book.” 

The APC has also dismissed Wadume’s claim, saying the party will never allocate resources to a kidnapper. 

Wadume was arrested in Taraba by the intelligence response team (IRT) of the inspector-general of police but escaped when soldiers opened fire on the team and killed three policemen and a civilian.