Prominent pro-democracy advocates, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has taunted Kayode Egbetokun, Inspector-General of Police, over the crisis rocking Rivers State.
Daily Trust reports that the Local Government election scheduled for October 5 is causing crisis in the state.
While Governor Siminalayi Fubara has vowed to carry on with the exercise, the two leading political parties – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – have boycotted it.
The Police also said it would not provide security during the election.
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Fubara has accused the IGP of taking sides with his opponents and working against the interest of the state.
He alleged that the IGP ordered withdrawal of police officers securing the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) and deployed some of his men from a neighbouring state to cart away materials meant for the election.
In a statement signed by Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA claimed the IGP has become a party in the ongoing battle for political relevance and supremacy between the Rivers governor and his erstwhile benefactor and immediate past governor, Nyesom Wike.
“We urge the IGP of Police Kayode Egbetokun to decide if he wants to remove his uniform and then join the All Progressives Congress as a registered card carrying member rather than wear the uniform paid for by taxpayers most of whom don’t belong to any political persuasions, and then only for the IGP to dabble into the political fisticuffs in Rivers State on behalf of the self acclaimed political godfather of Rivers State Barrister Nyesom Wike. The police in Rivers state controlled from the office of IGP in Abuja, must behave like professionals.”
“We view this brazen attack on the soul of democracy in Rivers state by the partisan Nigeria Police as an attempted coup which must not be swept under the carpets of impunity. We will continue to warn the Nigeria Police to steer off politics and operate in compliance to the constitutional provisions which created the Policing institution to enforce law and order and not to be deployed for political parties’ supremacy battles to advance the ambitions of certain individuals only because they are affiliated to the All Progressives Congress which is the party in power at the centre.
“The Nigeria Police Force has continued to give Nigerians reasons to doubt that the country even have anything like a credible or professional policing institution because if the police of Nigeria now behaves like the armed wing of a party and then dabble into controversies around the Rivers Local Government elections, we the people of Nigeria will automatically assume that we don’t have a complete professional police in existence. These vexatious, toxic, unconstitutional harassment of the Rivers state governor and the brazen, lawless, reckless efforts to take over democratic institutions by the police in Rivers state are only drawing us back to the days of the military dictatorship and these illegal acts of treachery by the police are attracting global opprobrium and bad image in the community of nations for Nigeria.”
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