Police re-occupy Rivers council secretariat, cite bomb scare

[TGD]

 CITING an explosion that occurred at the power-generating set building as reason for doing so, the Police have once again barricaded the Obio-Akpor Local Government Secretariat at Rumuodumaya, Rivers State. It also denied knowledge of a plot to assassinate the Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, members of the state Legislature and some top government officials.

The Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu, ordered the occupation of the council secretariat barely 48 hours after a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt ordered it to end its 11 days' siege at the council.

Mbu informed journalists at the Police Headquarters, Port Harcourt, Wednesday that barely 25 minutes after he ordered his men to vacate the Obio-Akpor Local Government Secretariat to allow for business and other transactions to be carried out in compliance with the Federal High Court order, unknown persons detonated explosives that destroyed the building housing the council's power-generating set.

"About 20 or 25 minutes later, the vehicle that was positioned there, the officers on the ground informed the Divisional Police Officer that they heard something like an explosion, which destroyed the power-generating room at the premises. We had no choice than to repossess that premises. We obeyed the court order, but because we had to protect the government property from damage, colossal damage, we had to repossess the place and we are there right now", he said.

Mbu, who has been accused by the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Otelemaba Amachree, of complicity in the political crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which eventually culminated in the suspension of the Obio-Akpor Council chairman, Timothy Nsirim, said whatever actions he has taken since the beginning of the crisis are within the ambit of the law and his professional ethics.

The Police Commissioner, who denied knowledge of a plot to assassinate Governor Amaechi and top government officials in the state, explained that as soon explosion at the council secretariat occurred, he quickly dispatched the Deputy Commissioner of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to the council to commence investigation.

He disclosed that personnel from the Bomb Disposal Unit of the Command were also sent in there. According to him, the Command has commenced investigation into the matter with the intent to fish out perpetrators of the act.

"We are not going to allow anybody to go in or come out. The Nigeria Police cannot fold their hands and watch government's property being destroyed, especially when we have information that if we were not there, property will be destroyed," he said.

When asked why the Police could not apprehend the suspects, he explained that the Police had withdrawn massively from the premises and left just a Police van outside with enough personnel.

According to him, since the Police were not there to infringe on people's freedom of movement, they did not bother to search those entering and coming out of the secretariat.

"So when you want to enter the local council, you come in, they search you. They said we should allow for free movement and conduct of business. So we just stood there and we were just watching people going in and outing out. We were not there to start searching people's bags, to check for bombs or to check for this device or that device. We ordered the court and we maintained security there in case of any crisis. We were not asked to search people or to surround the building. We did our job," he said.

Piqued by the unfolding worrisome political situation in Rivers State, the former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Gas, Mr. Igo Aguma, said that the Police selected obedience of the court order directing it to end its siege at Obio-Akpor, amounts to witch-hunt.

Aguma, who frowned at the political development in Rivers State, said the use of the Police and judiciary, as tool in politics is a condemnable action.

He insisted that the Police's reoccupation of the Obio-Akpor Secretariat barely 24 hours after it withdrew some of its personnel smacks of witch-hunt.

He stressed that those who don't want the caretaker committee access to the council secretariat are bent on preventing the House of Assembly, which he said, acted within the ambit of the Rivers State Local Government Law, from conducting a thorough investigation of the suspended chairman.

Aguma, who reaffirmed his support for Governor Amaechi and the Godspower Ake-led faction of PDP, cautioned that if the crisis plaguing the PDP in Rivers State is not resolved soon, the party risks losing the state in the next general election.



The Guardian