The Labour Party (LP) caucus in the House of Representatives, has
demanded an investigation into circumstances surrounding the arrest of the party’s national chairman, Barrister Julius Abure by a team of Policemen and Department of State Security (DSS) operatives.
Leader of the caucus and member representing Ogbaru federal constituency, Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, in a statement yesterday, described the treatment given to the LP national chairman by the security operatives as “cruel, dehumanising and an abuse of democratic ethos”.
According to Tijani Momoh, spokesperson of the police for Zone 5, Edo state, Abure was arrested over a petition to the Inspector General (IG) of Police, in a case of alleged “attempted murder, conspiracy to commit dangerous harm.”
Ogene, however, said the timing of Abure’s arrest on the eve of the party’s primary election for the forthcoming governorship election in Edo state, when he (Barrister Abure) led the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) to oversee the conduct of the primary, exposed the action as a “crudely scripted political charade that offends the sensibility of every true democrat and puts to question the integrity of the police in issues that involve the political class”.
The LP caucus leader called on the Inspector-general of police (IGP) to investigate the underlying issues that has put the police in bad light, by “Once again soiling the institution in the mud of desperate tussle for political powers, by those who see politics as a do or die affair.”
Ogene said: “There is no excuse for the manner the police conducted the ill-timed and misleading arrest of LP national chairman. If there was any need for the Police to take Barrister Abure in, a simple invitation would have sufficed.
“The inexplicable dehumanisation and brutalisation of Chief Abure was uncalled for. Democracy ought to refine our security agents and bring out the best in them, rather than enhance their biases and prejudices in the society.
“It is absolutely unlikely that the National Chairman of either the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), would suffer similar ignoble treatment in the hands of the Nigerian police.
“In deed, what was the rationale for arresting a man of Abure’s standing in society in such a gestapo manner, drag him on the streets like a common felon, only to release him in the dead of the night?
“While we cannot prevent the nation’s security agencies from carrying out their constitutional assigned roles, we insist, as a Caucus, that civility, decorum and due process must be their watchword, always.
“Consequently, it is our demand that the perpetrators of this show of shame must be brought to book, if only to serve as a potent reminder to the Government of the day, that the days of the jackboots are long over,” the statement added.
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