Rerun: PDP Rejects Police Probe …Urges Focus On Police, INEC Slips

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State, has dismissed the panel set up by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to investigate violence that greeted the December 10, 2016 legislative rerun election in the state, describing it as a mere make-believe.
The party alleged that the contradictions, inconsistencies, biases and double standards that characterise the position of the police with regard to the re-run election, making it foolhardy of any serious-minded person or group to take such police panel seriously.
The Rivers State Chairman of PDP, Felix Obuah, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt, yesterday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Jerry Needam, regretted that the IGP, as the chief law enforcement officer of the country’s civil life should throw caution to the wind by demonstrating in very unmistakable terms in a manner that ensured that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has an edge in an election that he ought to be neutral.
The statement reads, “For such panel to make sense to the Rivers people, the statement added, the police high command especially the Inspector-General of Police should first do the needful by proving to the Rivers people and indeed, all Nigerians that he is not a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), or at best, sympathetic to APC’s cause.
“First and foremost, the police high command ordered and did withdraw all orderlies attached to all politicians, only to turn back to attach all the orderlies withdrawn from the PDP politicians to those of the APC.
“There was no APC candidate or chieftain on that day of election that had less than 50 policemen attached to them while those of the PDP were left to their own fate,” the PDP argued.
Meanwhile, the national leadership of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, lambasted the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, for constituting a panel of investigation over the alleged threatening phone call by the Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike.
The PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said: “It is sarcastic for the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to constitute a panel of investigation for the purported ‘threatening phone call’ by the Governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike instead of seeking solution to all the video evidence of the killings and hijacking of electoral materials by the police and other security agencies with some INEC officials during the rerun elections.
“For instance, in Gokana Local Government Area, men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were seen in a video shooting sporadically to disperse voters and later made away with ballot boxes. The same incident occurred in almost all the Polling Units in Rivers South East Senatorial District where Senator Magnus Abe was magically declared winner. Given the state of war in this entire District between security agencies and Rivers people, we still want to know who voted to make up the Results declared for the APC.
“We wish to also remind Nigerians of the Video of two staffers of the INEC caught in the act at the home of an APC chieftain in Opobo Town, Dr Sam Sam Jaja. These men were taken to the House of Jaja by officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and were apprehended while thumb-printing and writing of results in favour of Jaja’s party, the APC. Equally, there is a popular video running in various television stations showing the Officer-in- charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Akin Fakorede in Rivers State who led his team to INEC Collation Centre in Port Harcourt to hijack election materials.
“These and many more glaring evidences abound of the collaboration between security agencies, the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and the INEC who were seen distorting and disrupting electoral processes in other to win at all cost but for the zeal and determination of the people of Rivers State who stood and defended their votes vehemently in most areas.
“We, therefore, urge the IGP to stop embarrassing Nigeria further and immediately bring to book all those seen in these videos committing electoral offenses. It’s suspicious and dangerous for the IGP to overlook these breaches of the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act by his men. Nigerians are waiting eagerly for the actions or inactions of the Police in this regard.
“However, Governor Wike has exonerated himself of the fabricated threatening phone call and the PDP also believes that the sudden appearance of the so-called video is only diversionary from the damning allegations of electoral malpractices by the Police, the Nigerian Army, the NSCDC and the INEC in the just concluded Rivers rerun elections.
“Assuming without conceding that the videoed phony phone call should be investigated, the negative actions of the IGP and his men have already created a heavy moral burden on them, and consequently, the Police is not in any position to set up a panel of inquiry against Governor Wike. We will resist any selective investigation by the Police or any other agency for that matter on the issue of Rivers Re-run Elections because such an attempt is aiming at covering the truth.
“In view of the above, the PDP is calling for a holistic investigation into the entire processes of the rerun elections before, during and after. The investigation should be conducted by a ‘non-partisan, unbiased and independent presidential committee’ in order to avoid turning the truth upside down and making villains out of the victims. Equally, the outcome will serve as a point of reference for our country’s future elections and the need to protect, nurture and deepen our democracy.
“We once again condole with the families of those that paid the ultimate sacrifices”, the PDP said, adding that their deaths will not be in vain.