RSG To APC: Shelve Solidarity March For SARS

The Rivers State Government has called on the All Progressives Congress (APC) to stop its planned solidarity march for the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) in the state.
A statement, yesterday, in Port Harcourt by the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Barrister Emma Okah noted that some politicians were importing hostile politics and divisiveness into crime fighting and prevention, aimed at weakening efforts of the state government to ensure that the state was safe for all.
The commissioner said the media space was full of bitter stories, adding that the state government has continuously raised alarm over the criminal atrocities of some SARS operatives in Rivers State without the police high command taking concrete actions.
According to Okah, “While these problems remain painfully unresolved, it will amount to extreme wickedness for anyone to applaud the same SARS through solidarity march, as if we have lost our humanity as a people”.
“Crime has no border and knows no political party, sex or religion and as often as there is harm to a society, the stakeholders should stand together and in one voice, confront the challenge”, Okah added.
He stressed that while the growing allegations of killings, kidnappings, armed robberies and extortions made against SARS remain uninvestigated, it would be disheartening for anybody, including the APC to fraternise with SARS.
“To do so will be the shame of Rivers State, and a demonstration of a diminished brotherhood among Rivers people”, the statement noted.
While the state government will continue to support security agencies in the discharge of their duties in Rivers State, Okah said, “It would be in the collective interest of the people of the state to stop politicising crime and deep-seated political hatred as the duty to protect the state rests on all.”
Remarking that “while government will come and go, the state will remain for all of us and future generations”, the commissioner implored SARS to be friendly and inspire public trust in the police instead of being a source of fear, agony, pain and anguish for the people.
“SARS should be our friends, inspire public trust in the police and not be our enemies or a source of fear, agony, pain and anguish in Rivers State, and as often as they torment Rivers people, nobody should play Pontius Pilate”, Okah added.

Chris Oluoh