Borno Gov Disowns Presidential Posters, Writes IGP

Borno State governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima has written to the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, distancing himself from campaign posters bearing his picture and that of Imo State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, aspiring for the 2019 presidency and requested for an immediate investigation into the sources of the posters.

The governor said while he was not worried about whatever political objective was aimed by those who “fraudulently” produced and pasted the posters in many parts of the FCT and Kaduna on Sunday, his major concern was that sponsors of the posters had a “wicked agenda” of undermining the current cordial relationship between the Borno State government and Buhari led administration in which they are “working together in the last one year for the collective goal of ending the Boko Haram insurgency”.

Shettima’s letter alluded to the bad relationship between his government during his first term and the Goodluck Jonathan administration, from 2011 to 2015, attributed to some political groups that worked against collaboration between his government and Jonathan administration in fighting the Boko Haram insurgency thereby making the insurgents to grow stronger.

The letter to the IGP with reference number BOSLO/ABJ/14/IV/407 and signed by Permanent Secretary in charge of the Borno State Government House and Security, Mr Ahmed Sanda was dated May 29, 2016, and dispatched from the Governor’s Office.

The letter reads in part, “I have been directed by His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima to bring to the IGP’s notice, dozens of fraudulently produced posters bearing his name and picture claiming he is aspiring for the 2019 Presidency. The posters have been pasted on some routes in Abuja and Kaduna.

“Governor Kashim Shettima regards this development as a highly mischievous plot that is aimed at destabilising the emerging peace in Borno State through creation of unnecessary political tension while on the other hand it might aim at creating gap between the Borno State government and the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration (which just marked it’s first year in office) with a wicked agenda of undermining the current cohesion between the two arms of government working together in the last one year for the collective goal of ending the Boko Haram insurgency.

“From a different information we have gathered, the posters are suspected to be the handiwork of a particular group of politicians trying to set the Borno State government and the APC in the state against the national headquarters of the APC and the federal government so as to lay a ground for a plan by the group of politicians to join the APC in Borno State and hijack the party’s machinery.”

Also, the letter requested that the Inspector General of Police authorizes an immediate investigation to establish the source of the posters and the purpose for which the plot is meant with appropriate steps taken to arrest and prosecute those behind the posters under relevant provisions of the law.