Less than 48 hours to the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has accused the Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) Abutu Yaro and four Commissioners of Police (CPs) deployed to the state to conduct the elections, of visiting the private residence of Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.
The four Commissioners include Yomi Olanrewaju, Samuel Musa, Lanre B. Sikiru, and Aderemi Adeoye, coordinating the state headquarters of the Police Command.
Addressing journalists in Port Harcourt on Thursday, spokesman of the APC Campaign Council in the state, Sogbeye Eli, said based on the visit, the party has lost confidence in the Police in the State.
Eli said: “As a corollary to the immediate above, Wike and his foot-soldiers have perfected the art of compromising State institutions with a dubious appropriation of the commonwealth of our State. They dole out billions and hundreds of millions in Naira and hard foreign currency to compromise State actors deployed to the State.
“In effect, what we have as the near and present danger to democracy in Nigeria is a Rivers State where an Assistant Inspector-General of Police and four Commissioners of Police are deployed to the State for election duty and they find it very convenient strolling into Wike’s private home at Rumuepirikom to freely indulge at midnight on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.
“What can a Police officer who had been so indulged less than 50 hours to D-day offer the the State in terms of security of the State or neutrality during the elections here? Nothing!!
“In the light of the above, we hasten to warn that the world cannot afford to stand idly by and watch democracy become so terribly compromised in Rivers State with incessant attacks and breach on the rights and freedom of free citizens.
“We have lost faith in the neutrality of the Police in Rivers State and submit that only the intervention of multilateral and multinational agencies can restore sanity here. We have a Governor whose understanding of power and the desperation for control of same bothers on schizophrenia.
“Wike would do anything, no matter how atrocious, illegal, unlawful and illegitimate to sustain his grip on power. But why should that be the case when the Constitution has provided proper and adequate safeguards against such dictatorship?”
He alleged that there were plots to use security agencies to arrest more APC leaders at the local government level on trumped-up charges.
The APC spokesman said: “We have credible intelligence from other Local Government Areas of the plot to pick more of our leaders and deny them their freedom on trumped up charges.
“In Tai Local Government Area, Victory Agbara who until his defection to the APC at our governorship campaign Rally in that LGA was Leader of the OSPAC Vigilante and member of the PDP, was arrested on Tuesday, the 21st of February.
“He has been detained at the Anti-cultism Unit facility of the Rivers State Police Command in very gruelling circumstances without trial or released on bail since then.
“Sadly, we are constrained to report that more than dangerous dimensions to the repression of rights of our members, other opposition parties and threats Wike’s faction of the PDP constitute to democracy in Rivers State are emerging.
“Just two days ago, Ogbonna Nwuke was filing charges of sedition against our leader and immediate past Minister of Transportation, The Rt. Hon. Chubuike Rotimi Amaechi, whilst addressing a press conference. Nwuke, who is the Director of Media and Publicity of the factional PDP Campaign Council in one moment of absolute indiscretion fought fortuitously to rope Amaechi into the crises Nigerians are facing with the Naira swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“Nwuke identified and presented Amaechi as part of a cabal at the Aso Rock Villa who are conspiring against the welfare of Nigerians through the implementation of the policy.
“A product of clearly convoluted reasoning, Nwuke blamed a man who left the Government of the Federation with his voluntary resignation as Minister in May 2022 to seek the presidential nomination of the APC ahead of the 2023 general elections.
“This is how low operatives of the factional PDP in Rivers State are prepared to go to sell their perfidy. This is how far those who in their warped thinking mistake political competition for enmity are prepared to go.
“For the Wikes and Nwukes of the factional Rivers PDP, nothing but the total annihilation of the opposition settles political scores. How naive!! So they stop at NOTHING to stop their opponents.”
