President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki on Wednesday accused the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris of plotting to frame him up to ‘settle scores’ for being declared unfit to hold public office by the Upper Legislative Chamber.

According to a statement which he read to the Senate at plenary, Saraki said the transfer of some cultism suspects who were arrested in Kwara State to the Force Headquarters in Abuja was meant to coerce them into implicating him.

He said on Tuesday night, he received information from the Governor of Kwara State, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed that a group of suspects who had been in police cell in Ilorin for several weeks over cultism allegations have been ordered to be transferred to Abuja after their investigations had been concluded and their prosecution was about to commence.

He revealed that the directive to transfer the six suspects identified as Abolaji Safti Ojulari, Lanre Mohammed Saliu, Azeez Moyaki, Suleiman Babatunde, Yusuf Habeeb and Umar Yahaya was issued by the IG.

According to Sararki, the plan, as Governor Idris was made to understand is that under duress, the suspects would be made to alter the statements they had already made in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital and implicate the Kwara State government and himself in particular.

“The plot is part of the strategy by the IGP, Idris to settle scores over the declaration by the honourable chamber that he is not qualified and competent to hold any public office within and outside the country and that he is an enemy of Nigerian democracy based on his usual disrespectful conduct towards lawful authorities,” Saraki added.

However, the police dismissed the Senate President’s and Kwara State government’s claims as untrue, misleading and an obstruction of the course of justice.

A statement also released on Wednesday by the police through its Force Public Relations Officer, Jimoh Moshood urged the Senate President not to interfere with police investigations, warning that until the investigations were concluded, “any person(s) or group(s) who try to interfere in the process either by action or utterances is committing an offence”.

The police said they were shocked at the unbelievable claims, unverifiable allegations and unfounded accusations being peddled against the IGP by the Senate President.

In the statement, Jimoh maintained that based on the public confessions of the suspects whom they said had admitted and confessed before the press to have killed 11 innocent persons in Kwara and other states on the instructions of their “sponsors”, it was a statutory procedure in the Police Force to transfer such heinous crimes and capital offences to the Force Headquarters to ensure a thorough and discreet investigation into the crime.

The statement added that the IG’s interest was to ensure that “justice prevails in the matter” and also to make sure that “nobody, no matter how highly-placed is allowed to interfere or obstruct police investigation to pervert the course of justice”.

The statement further called on the general public to disregard and discountenance the claim of a plot by the IGP against Saraki as a ruse and an unfortunate attempt to divert investigations into the assassinations, vowing that the Force would do everything within the provisions of the law to ensure that justice takes its full course in the matter.