Mohammed Yusuf, who led members of his gang to rob the home of Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has said he did not know the house they went to belonged to “a big man”.
The 25-year-old suspect, who was paraded the police spokesman, Mr. Jimoh Moshood at the Police Force Headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday night, also said they did not find any security personnel on duty at the time they got to the house.
Yusuf said they scaled the fence and had unhindered access into the compound and entered one of the rooms with the aid of a jack used in changing tyres.
The suspect said they went into Ekweremadu’s house to look for money, but said he ended up with nothing as he was eventually caught while other members of the gang escaped.
He said upon entering the room, they met Ekweremadu’s son, who tactfully took them to his father’s room and started calling “honey, honey” and his father opened the door.
The suspect, who spoke in Hausa, through an interpreter, said they had thought that the young man was calling his wife to open the door for him, only to find a man.
Moshood insisted that police investigation carried out so far did not reveal any assassination attempt on Ekweremadu’s life.
Instead, he said it was a case of burglary and attempt to commit robbery.
In its reaction, the South-East Governors’ Forum called for a thorough and unbiased investigation into the alleged assassination attempt on deputy president of the senate.
The forum also rejected what it described as “hasty conclusion’’ by the investigating security agency that the attack was a case of burglary.
The director general of the forum, Prof. Simon Ortuanya, who made the call in Enugu while briefing the media, alleged that the careful and methodical execution of the plot as reported, pointed to something more sinister than burglary.
He argued that if the mission was mere burglary, the so-called burglars would not have prevailed on Ekweremadu’s son to take them to his father’s bedroom.
He said the alleged attempted attack on Ekweremadu had cast a dark shadow on the security of lives and property in Nigeria.
With The Sun and NAN reports
