Nigeria’s Vice President, Arc. Namadi Sambo, was the unseen hand behind last Saturday night’s arrest of leading opposition figure, Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima, News Express can reveal this morning.

Sources in the know told News Express that the order to apprehend and quiz the radical senator was passed to the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, whose office then conveyed it to the Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Olufemi Adenaike.

“The Vice President gave the order when his attention was called to listen to the live Hausa Language programme, Hannu Dayawa, of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria,” one source said.

Sambo was governor of Kaduna State before he became Vee Pee and continues to maintain a firm grip on the North-West state generally accepted as the political capital of the North.

Upon receiving the signal from Nigeria’s capital Abuja, CP Adenaike hurried down to the radio station and effected the arrest of Yerima, a former governor of Zamfara State, once he finished the programme. Yerima was however released after questioning in connection with his threat that All Progressives Congress (APC), the emergent mega opposition party, would launch a protest march in Abuja if it is denied registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“We just invited him to clarify some statements he made during the programme and he made a written statement and was allowed to go,” CP Adenaike later told newsmen.

•Photo: Vee Pee Namadi Sambo.