The Rivers State Government notes with infinite sadness the decision of the Nigeria Police to dismiss six police officers attached to governor Nyesom Wike.
The police officers were subjected to a secret and unfair trial, on totally fictitious charges of professional misconduct, during the rerun elections in Rivers State on the 10th of December 2016.
This is a tragic day for professionalism and the respect for human rights in the Nigeria police force.
The dismissed officers committed no crime, other than foil a carefully orchestrated electoral heist by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in collusion with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Nigeria Police force.
The claim by the Police that the affected officers misused their firearms while in the convoy of governor Wike on the 10th of December 2016, is a wrong and cruel fabrication.
Governor Wike did not depart from his official premises on the day of the election, and therefore had no use for an armed convoy.
Two days after the elections, on the 12th of December 2016, thousands of Rivers people, led by Governor Wike, resisted an invasion by the police on the premises of the Port Harcourt City Local Government Council premises, in a brazen attempt to rig the elections in favour of the APC.
The Port Harcourt City Council was the Election Collation Centre for the Rivers East Senatorial District.
Throughout the period of the stand off between the invading police officers and the thousands of citizens who resisted them, governor Wike and the officers around him conducted themselves with utmost restraint.
The dismissed officers are therefore the latest victims of the medieval dictatorship of the APC government. A government that seems to lurch blindly in the miasma of its own incompetence and intolerance. .
We urge Nigerians to demand the immediate reinstatement of these officers, and for the Inspector General of Police to allow an independent inquiry.
The APC government has never hidden it’s desperation to overrun Rivers State, “colonize” its people and loot the treasury of the State.
But the Rivers people will continue to resist all attempts to enslave them.
Signed:
Dr Austin Tam-George, Commissioner for Information and Communication, Rivers State.
