Police Assure Rivers Residents Of Peaceful Polls

The Rivers State Police Command has assured residents of a peaceful atmosphere before, during and after this year’s general elections.
The State Commissioner of Police, Usman Belel’ gave the assurance when members of the civil society organisations paid him a courtesy visit at his office in Port Harcourt.
Belel also advised residents of the state not to be scared of going out to exercise their franchise during the elections.
He said the police was willing to partner members of the civil society to enlighten the public to achieve justice.
The state police boss explained that violence did not pay, pointing out that election is a civic duty and asking people not to take to violence is part of ensuring a hitch- free poll.
 According to Belel: “We have our respective deployment all over the place as we need to have free, fair and credible elections in Rivers State.
“Citizens have rights and those rights must be respected .That is the underlying principle of democracy. We are doing everything possible to enlighten our men that you cannot trample on somebody’s right and go scot free,” he said.
Earlier, Chairman of the civic society organisations in Rivers State, Enefaa Georgewill advised political parties in the state to play by the rules during the forth-coming elections.
Georgewill stated: ‘’We think that no one has a monopoly of violence and no one political party can threaten the entire citizenry. We think that it is unbecoming of our political parties and political elites to try to see how they can smuggle the process to their favour. 
“It is our prayer and our wish that political parties and players should follow the rules of the game in order to achieve a peaceful election process”, Georgewill said.

Agnes Onwuegbu & Barizaa Akpobari