Ado Alhassan Doguwa, the immediate past leader of the House of Representatives, has engaged in back-and-forth with Dr. Abdulmumini Jibrin, his colleague in the House, regarding the latter’s purported involvement in the murder of three individuals during the 2023 election.

Doguwa, the head of the House Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), stated that the nation’s courts and law enforcement have conclusively demonstrated his innocence in the case, which he had no knowledge of.

Doguwa, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and representative for Doguwa/Tudun Wada federal constituency in Kano state, was responding to Abdulmumini Jibrin’s allegation that he orchestrated the alleged violence and crisis that resulted in the cold-blooded murder of three people at the collation center in his Kano constituency.

In a statement made accessible to the Guardian on Thursday, Doguwa asked Jibrin to clarify his involvement in the 2019 killings of seven followers of Yusuf Abba and Rabiu Kwankwaso, both of whom were opposition party members (PDP).

He asserted that Kwankwaso, Abba, and Ali Madaki, the deputy minority leader of the House, are live witnesses to the purported Jibrin supporters’ murder of the seven PDP members.

“Of course, by the most straightforward rudimentary principle of our legal system, an accused person within the Nigerian context of the administration of criminal justice remains innocent until he is proven guilty by a competent court of law,” the man stated in support of his claims.Now that my record has been cleared, it is rather evident.

“According to the rulings of three courts with appropriate jurisdiction, I am innocent of the malicious accusations made against my innocent self.

The most recent and excellent ruling regarding the enforcement of my fundamental human rights as a free Nigerian citizen was handed down by a Federal High Court in Abuja. Knowing that the Kano State government and the governor were even forced to pay me N25 million in damages for unduly harassing me and slandering my blameless reputation could be of interest to Jibrin and his allies.

“Of course, there was a crisis instigated by perpetual political losers in my area, but I was not behind such a crisis, instead I was only made a victim,” he remarked in response to the plot against him during the 2023 election.A few of the thugs who had confessed to police investigators were taken into custody; these were primarily members of the NNPP.

“Some of them were even employed from Kano City to travel to Tudun Wada in an attempt to thwart my modest self’s inexorable election to the House of Representatives for a seventh time. These NNPP offenders who were indicted were prosecuted by the proper Kano courts and received various penalties.

Let me also state unequivocally that, as of right now, I, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa, am not appearing in court in Nigeria for any supposed murder, culpable homicide, or politically motivated violence that my critics or political adversaries have conjectured about. I reviewed almost every criminal investigation and all judicial proceedings at all levels, andemerged untarnished and triumphantly innocent.

“Public access is granted to copies of these thorough police investigations that were carried out by the nation’s top police investigation body, the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID, Abuja), and which exonerated me.

“For the information of Jibrin and his criminal associates, the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice in Kano State took action and provided clear-cut legal counsel that cleared me of the purported criminal accusations based on the police clearance.

In light of this, I would want to declare on the basis of both my honor and my Islamic moral conviction that the alleged crisis in my district was a hoax created to thwart my projected political aspirations for the rest of my life to be the House of Representatives’ Speaker).