Offa Robbery: Why Lai Mohammed’s Name Has Become Synonymous With Lies – Saraki

The President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, has described the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, as a liar.

Saraki said this sequel to a statement by Mohammed, saying the president of the Senate was trying to cover up his role in the Offa, Kwara State robbery incident of April 5, 2018 in which 33 persons, including nine policemen and a pregnant woman, were killed.

In a statement by Yusuph Olaniyonu, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Saraki described Mohammed as an unrestrained and compulsive perjurer, whose name has become synonymous with misinformation and untruths.

Responding to Mohammed’s claim that during a radio interview in Kwara State on Christmas day, Dr. Saraki had trivialised the Offa robbery incident by saying that he had donated N10 million to the Offa Monarch as compensation for  victims, Olaniyonu stated that those who are trying to implicate the Senate President in the Offa robbery affair by all means are so fixated on that mission that they are messing up with the due process that would give justice to the victims, both dead and alive, and closure to their families.

Olaniyonu said: “During the Senate President’s syndicated radio interview, he made it clear that it was unthinkable that anybody would want to link him with armed robbery or violence against his own people. He stated categorically that anybody that would want to link him to such violence should first ask what he has to gain from such a dastardly act.

“It was then the Senate President mentioned that the desperate narrative that has been spun to implicate him after the robbery does not make any sense, as when he visited the monarch, he donated N10 million for the care of the wounded — while it has been revealed that the money stolen by the robbers was just N7 million.

“Dr. Saraki also stated that those who have tried and have failed to implicate him in the Offa robbery, have been so fixated on that unsuccessful mission that they are now trampling on the due process that would give justice to the victims, both dead or alive, and much-needed closure to their families and the affected community.

“One thing is clear, the Nigerian public and the people of Offa know that Lai Mohammed’s utterances are synonymous with deliberate misinformation, unbridled untruths, and outright falsehoods. Right now, he is only playing the cheap politics that he is known to play when the general elections come around.

“The Offa people know how to differentiate between leaders like Dr. Saraki who have stood with them throughout the years and those Lagos-based politicians, like Lai Mohammed, who only come around to make noise, spew political propaganda, and use the tragic loss of their sons and daughters as cheap political points in an election season.”