Babatope Okeowo 
Barely 24 hours after Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State threatened to sue a legal practitioner for defamation, the lawyer Oladotun Hassan has petitioned President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over what he described as a conspiracy to distort the contentious police report regarding the alleged certificate of the governor.
Governor Aiyedatiwa had through his lawyer, Mr Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa threatened Hassan with a #1 billion lawsuit within seven days if he did not apologise to the governor over his petition to the Inspector General of Police (IGP).
However Hassan in his petition to Tinubu cautioned against the alleged ploy to manipulate the police report and a thorough investigation into the matter be carried out.
The lawyer who initiated the police probe into the alleged discrepancies in the academic credentials of Aiyedatiwa maintained his stand on the authenticity of the police report.
Hassan emphasised that the police authority had given a Deputy Commissioner of Police the green light to investigate the academic records of the governor, after which the report was submitted.
The Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Olumuyiwa Adejobi disowned the report, stressing that Deputy Commissioner of Police Tahir Usman, who supervised the probe, lacked the authority to release such a report.
The legal practitioner disclosed that a top police officer was allegedly behind the move to obstruct the pursuit of justice and to distort facts in the official police report obtained from the police through the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
The petition read “We are constrained to bring to your attention the unwholesome act of D.I.G. Sylvester Alabi on an issue bordering on the certificate forgery, perjury, and misrepresentation of facts brought to your exalted office on June 2, 2023, and after a thorough investigation for which a police report was given to us upon request under the Freedom of Information Act, sometime on February 15, 2024.
“Today, the 5th of April, 2024, we were inundated with a news report with ref. no. CZ. 5300/FPRD/FHQ/ABJ/VOL6/148 dated April 5, 2024, issued by ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, Force Public Relations Officer, Force Headquarters, on behalf of the Nigeria Police Force.
“Sir, the true position is that our law firm, by petition, invited your exalted office to investigate a case of certificate forgery, perjury, and criminal misrepresentation against Mr. Lucky Ayedatiwa, which the petition graciously approved for investigation.
“Based upon the said approval, your men, led by DCP Tahir Usman, swung into action and diligently investigated the matter and found it a fact that the allegations are true.
“We thereafter made a formal request based on the spirit and letters of the Freedom of Information Act to the DIG, FCIB, Abuja, which request was granted, and a copy of the police report was issued to us. Let me use this medium to salute the courage and dexterity of the officers who carried out the investigation; we recommend that they ought to and should be commended.
“Based on the Police Report, a letter was sent to the National Leadership of the All Progressives Congress and the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is the leader of the party, to act on the report so that the party would avoid the pitfalls of what happened in the Bayelsa State chapter of the party in the governorship election.
“It is instructive to note that since the information was made public to the leadership of the APC, Mr. Lucky Ayedatiwa, instead of coming out to explain how he sat and got a WAEC O level certificate in 1982 from a school that was founded in 1980 and admitted to the police that it was accredited to conduct its first WAEC May/June examinations in 1985, has been busy trying to compromise the integrity of the Nigeria Police Force to prejudice the outcome of the report of the screening committee of the APC.
The petition further reads, “In concert with him in the nefarious act of trying to compromise the integrity of the Nigeria Police Force is the DIG Sylvester Alabi, who we are told have been intimidating and harassing your gallant and diligent officers who carried out a thorough investigation into the matter to the extent of issuing them queries.
“We have been reliably informed that D.I.G. Sylvester Alabi has confiscated the file and all other documents about the investigation to tamper with the earlier findings by cooking up a new police report favourable to Mr. Lucky Ayedatiwa.
“This act of the D.I.G. Sylvester Alabi, to say the least, is most reprehensible and has given us the reasonable belief that DIG Sylvester Alabi’s action is borne out of some financial inducement, which we urge you to investigate without delay, sir.
“DIG Sylvester Alabi has since confirmed our apprehensions by causing the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, to issue this statement.
“We therefore, by this letter, urge you to without delay set up the machinery to investigate this unwholesome act of the DIG Sylvester Alabi to halt the harassment and intimidation of the gallant officers that, at the risk of their lives, conducted a thorough investigation in the matter of which the Nigeria Police Force should be proud.
“We are also inviting you, sir, to retrieve the case file from DIG Sylvester Alabi before he does any damage to the case file and, by extension, to the integrity and image of the Nigeria Police Force under your watch.
“We also invite the IGP to order a thorough investigation into these unwholesome acts of DIG Sylvester Alabi and his cohorts to unravel the facts surrounding the issuance of the press statement made by my ACP, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, on behalf of the police.”
