SECURITY OPERATIVES STORM SENATOR LA'AH'S RESIDENCE OVER SOUTHERN KADUNA KILLINGS

Security Operatives Storm Senator’s Residence Over Southern Kaduna Killings

March 10th, 2017 

Senator Danjuma Tella La’ah (PDP-Kaduna South) says his Kaduna home was invaded on Thursday by about 100 people, including armed regular and mobile policemen.


Senator Danjuma Tella La’ah

“They came in trucks, buses and pick-up vans around 5 am, forced my security man at gunpoint to open the gate,” he said in a statement issued in Kaduna, adding that they operated at gunpoint and a destructive search on the property without a court warrant.

A source in Abuja confirmed the visitors to have been “top investigators and operatives of Department of State Services and Nigerian Police Force” who made the visit in connection with the Southern Kaduna killings.

The Senator said the visitors used knives to tear open his furniture, broke the louvers on his doors, tossed things around, destroyed the delicately plastered ceiling of his bedroom and entered the roof.

“In the course of their search, they took away a pump action gun with its official permit granted me since 2008.  My two nephews, Friday Batan and Samson Tanko, who were in the house were manhandled by the armed security personnel and taken away to an unknown place. I am yet to establish contact with them.

"Also my wristwatches, expensive jewelry belonging to my wife have [been] carted away. I am yet to ascertain the extent of missing valuables in residence. I was informed about the incident while I was in Abuja. I cannot also establish if something very incriminating has not been planted in my home as part of the orchestrated plot not only to rubbish my integrity but criminalize me with the aim of prosecuting me

Senator La’ah attributed the raid to his calling Governor Nasir El-Rufai to order this year over his clearly biased stand against Southern Kaduna natives in the ongoing genocide there, adding that it followed various interrogations and psychological harassment the SSS in Abuja has meted out to him since then. 

“It is on record that some Christian clerics from Southern Kaduna have also been quizzed by the SSS over their condemnation of the killings of members of their congregation,” he said.  “Some youth leaders, journalists, and social commentators all from Southern Kaduna have been arrested and charged to court over innocuous comments on the ongoing killings in Southern Kaduna starting from last year.”

He said he wanted to put on notice that not only are law abiding, harmless natives of Southern Kaduna being maimed, killed and their communities destroyed by Fulani herdsmen, noting that Governor El-Rufai has traced some of the killers back to some African countries and paid them sums of money, and is making it a crime for anyone to mention the killings or call for lawful self-defence in the face of his failure to stop them.

“The Governor has not only made it a monopoly to be the one making very inciting and divisive statements over [these] killings, his clampdown on vocal voices of Southern Kaduna is making it harder for the much-needed mutual confidence on the parts of the beleaguered people of Southern Kaduna to look upon him as a fair and trustworthy leader,” the Senator said.

He called on all the people of Southern Kaduna not to take the law into their hands no matter the provocation.”  Instead, he urged them to remain focused, hopeful and prayerful while keeping a watchful eye on their communities.

Our source, however, indicated that the security operatives who raided Senator La’ah’s residence obtained some helpful “evidence,” but did not say what it was.  

He said investigators had been following the lawmaker since last year.