Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, has debunked ordering the detainment of Nasir El-Rufai during the Anambra governorship election in 2013.
El-Rufai had on Monday, during an interactive session with the Arewa joint committee, alleged that he was detained in his hotel room while on an inspection of the 2013 governorship election in Anambra State on the orders of Obi, then Anambra State governor.
Reacting to the allegation, Obi while speaking at the event said he had no such power to order El-Rufai’s detention, noting that he was equally detained in his Local Government Area, LGA.
He said, “When I came in now, somebody told me that my brother, the governor of Kaduna state, said that he came to my state and I detained him. Let me tell you, it is good when these things happen, you clarify them.
“Number one, in my eight years of being governor, only in the first three months did I have a commissioner that is not from the north — commissioner of police. And that’s because I met the person.
“At the time the governor said this, it was during election. The police commissioner that was there then was from Adamawa — CP Gwari from Adamawa. The AIG that supervised that election was CP Nasarawa from the north. The DIG that came for that election was from Kano.
See Also: How Peter Obi Arrested, Detained Me in Anambra In 2013 – El-Rufai
“Tell me my power, that I was in APGA — government was PDP and APC. Tell me how APGA person will issue order for somebody to be detained. Even me was detained in my local government.
“However, the only offence I committed is that when they asked me, I said ‘that’s how they treat everybody; that I wouldn’t be in Kaduna on the day of election’. That was the only thing.
“There is no way. I cannot do that. As governor of Anambra state, I had the best ADC in Nigeria — the best policeman. My ADC, Mohammed, is from Kano. He’s the best policeman that I have ever met. Who will I give the order? How will I tell who lives in my house every day; I’m close to his family; I get up and say ‘Mohammed, I want to deal with your people’, and he will stay there.
“Call my ADC today. I will give you his phone number. He’s the best policeman. He’s a CSP now. So, when people say Peter Obi is black. 2019, I was [vice-presidential candidate], I was a good man. Now that I want to be president, I’ve become a bad man. I did not do anything wrong. I want to change Nigeria.”
Source: Cable