Police: Why we haven’t arrested Buhari’s aide over ‘fake’ WAEC result

The Nigeria police force has spoken on the house of representatives demand seeking the arrest of one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s aides for alleged result forgery.

In an interview with TheCable, Jimoh Moshood, police spokesman, said the demand to arrest Okoi Obono-Obla, Buhari’s senior special assistant on prosecution, is yet to be carried out because the police have not been officially informed.

The house had asked Ibrahim Idris, inspector-general of police, to arrest and prosecute the presidential aide for allegedly being in possession of a fake West African Examination Council (WAEC) result.

The lawmakers adopted the recommendation of one of its committee which said it discovered irregularities in the O’level result which the presidential aide has, following a petition to the house by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA).

The presidential aide is said to have used the result in question to gain admission into the University of Jos where he studied and subsequently, the Nigerian Law School.

However, nothing has been heard of the issue since the recommendation was made.

Asked to comment on the issue on Friday, Moshood told TheCable the force has not received any correspondence from the national assembly regarding the matter.

“We have not received any correspondence in that regard. We have not been informed of the development,” he said.

Asked further if the police had learnt about the saga, he responded: “What did they say he did? We have not been contacted.”

Abdulrazak Namdas, spokesman of the house of representatives, was silent on whether the directive has been communicated to the police or not.

“It was a resolution. The house having passed the resolution has done their part,” he told TheCable over the phone.

When the allegations were first made, Obono-Obla had said they were the outcome of “a hatchet job masterminded by some members of the national assembly who are under investigation by my panel” and that “the intention is to smear and ridicule me.”