Politics
Chidi Lloyd: Court Decides On A-Gs Power, Morrow
The coverage of the Rivers State House of Assembly virtually shifted to the court room, last week may be regarded as the most eventful that focused more on an individual member of the House.
But for the momentary diversion to confirm the power of the Police to invite and question the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Otelemaba Dan Amachree, over the alarm he raised regarding the security of the life of the State Governor and some top government officials, as well as the matter involving the five anti-Amaechi lawmakers and the other 27, the week under review would be best christened “Hon. Chidi Lloyd’s week”.
It started on Sunday with an alarm raised by the Deputy Speaker of the House, Hon. Leyii Kwanee, to the effect that the Leader of the House, Hon. Lloyd was going blind. He explained that the gradual blindness was the result of ill-treatment meted out to Lloyd by the Police while keeping him in their custody.
Such ill-treatment, he said, included being blind-folded, tortured and sprayed with tear-gas all over his body, especially in his eyes as a means of extracting information from him. In order to stop what he called dehumanizing treatment of the Leader, Kwanee said the 27 pro- Amaechi lawmakers were considering taking the matter outside the shores of the country to protect the rights of Hon. Lloyd.
By Tuesday, when the prosecution (Police) was to produce the accused (Lloyd) to make a plea of guilty or not guilty to facilitate his release on bail in the High Court presided over by Justice L. L. Nyordee, they failed to produce him, warranting the defense counsel, Beluolisa Nwofor (SAN) to threaten to pray the court to strike out the matter and sue the prosecution for malicious prosecution if they fail to produce his client the next day. Justice Nyordee had adjourned the matter to Wednesday, after the defense counsel had waited for hours in the court and the prosecution, led by Donald DENwigwe did not turn up.
When the court reconvened on Wednesday, and the Leader was produced, Lloyd’s plea could not be taken because his counsel queried the right of Denwigwe, who is a private lawyer to appear in a criminal charge by the Police without a fiat from the Attorney-General (AG) of the state. He therefore, urged the court to delist Denwigwe from the counsels to prosecute the matter, pending when the fiat could be granted.
Denwigwe argued that the matter was not initiated by the AG, but by the Commissioner of Police (CP), hence it does not require him to provide an authority from the AG of the state.
He insisted that the court should rule on the application on the jurisdiction of the prosecution before the plea could be taken.
At a point, the AG, Nworgu Boms, invoked the powers conferred on him by Section 211(1)(b) of the Constitution to take over the prosecution, saying that he was acting with the sense of public duty and law. This announcement, Denwigwe said, was premature because the accused had not been duly arraigned; hence there was nothing for the AG to takeover.
Justice Nyordee therefore adjourned the matter to August 6, 2013, saying that plea cannot be taken and the court cannot make any order on the custody of the accused.
On Thursday, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Amachree in a press statement appealed to the Police to stop torturing Hon. Lloyd, while also debunking insinuations that he sneaked out into a West African country in order to evade arrest by the Police following Justice Adolphus Enebeli’s judgment that the Police had the right to invite and question him. He explained that he was on official assignment to Windhoek, Namibia where he led the state’s deligation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) meeting.
On Friday the court reconvened again to hear a bail motion by Chidi Lloyd, but Presiding Judge, Latan Nyordee refused to hear the motion because no plea had been taken in the case preferred against him by the Police. Adjourning the matter to the earlier adjourned date of August 6, Nyordee held that when an interlocutory application is filed in a criminal charge as serious as the one Lloyd is facing, it is proper for the accused person to be properly arraigned before application for bail can be heard.
Prof. Amupitan gave the warning on Saturday, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the South-South Zonal Readiness Assessment and Interactive Staff Engagement organised ahead of the 2027 general elections.
He said insecurity remained a potential challenge to the electoral process but stressed that the Commission would not allow threats against its personnel to undermine its constitutional responsibilities.
“Insecurity may pose a challenge, but our collective constitutional resolve is far stronger. Let me again send a clear message from Port Harcourt: anyone who attempts to threaten, intimidate, or harm our ad-hoc staff, NYSC members, or permanent personnel will be brought to justice under the full weight of the law,” he said.
The INEC Chairman, who was accompanied by National Commissioners, directors and technical aides, disclosed that the South-South engagement was the fifth in a series of zonal assessments, following similar exercises in the South-West, North-West, South-East and North-East.
He explained that his physical presence across the geopolitical zones reflected the Commission’s field-first approach, emphasising that electoral integrity must be established through effective operations at the grassroots.
According to him, the assessment would cover operational preparedness across the 123 Local Government Areas in the six South-South states.
On election security, Prof. Amupitan said INEC had moved away from reactive security arrangements traditionally activated around election day to a proactive, intelligence-driven framework known as the “ICCES Tentacle”.
He explained that the framework was designed to extend inter-agency security coordination from national and state headquarters to local government areas and Registration Area Centres, including remote communities.
He identified three critical pillars of the framework as mapping and mitigating security threats, protecting electoral personnel and infrastructure, and guaranteeing safe access to polling units.
The INEC boss said the security arrangement would provide comprehensive protection for electoral personnel, technological infrastructure, including Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices and server infrastructure, as well as voters.
He added that the framework was intended to ensure that every polling unit, irrespective of its geographical location or history of security challenges, remained safe and accessible for the exercise of democratic rights.
Prof. Amupitan disclosed that the South-South security architecture comprised approximately 60 major operational formations, headquarters and state commands operating under the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
The network, he said, brings together military, naval, air, police and other security and intelligence agencies across the six states.
“Together, this integrated multi-agency network represents the operational backbone that guarantees intelligence-led protection across every riverine creek, coastal axis, and land-based polling unit in the Niger Delta,” he stated.
Providing an overview of the region’s electoral significance, the INEC Chairman said the South-South had the fourth-largest voting bloc in the country, with 15,823,550 registered voters, representing 15.30 per cent of the national register.
Rivers State alone, he said, accounts for 3,736,434 registered voters spread across the 23 local government areas.
Alhaji Abubakar made the demand following revelations that some INEC registration officers allegedly abused their access to the voter registration system to introduce irregular records into the database.
In a statement issued by his Director of Strategic Communications, Mr Phrank Shaibu, the former vice-president described the development as a serious breach of the Commission’s internal safeguards and raised concerns about the integrity of the electoral process.
He urged INEC to identify the officials implicated in the alleged misconduct and explain what disciplinary or legal measures had been taken against them.
Alhaji Abubakar also called for an independent forensic audit of the preliminary voters’ register to establish the scale of the alleged manipulation, identify affected records and determine how the questionable entries were introduced into the system.
He further insisted that INEC preserve all relevant voter records, image files, system access logs and electronic audit trails to prevent the destruction or alteration of evidence before an independent examination could be conducted.
The former vice-president also demanded that the Commission disclose the identities of companies contracted to produce sensitive election materials ahead of the 2027 polls, arguing that transparency was essential to building public confidence in the electoral process.
INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, had earlier disclosed during a television interview that some registration officers across the country allegedly used their official login credentials to introduce irregularities into the voters’ database.
Dr Bayode explained that the Commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System helped identify questionable records and establish how some irregularities entered the system.
He, however, clarified that not all suspicious photographs were AI-generated, as some resulted from poor registration procedures.
The development followed public concerns over suspected AI-generated photographs, alleged duplicate entries and other inconsistencies discovered in the preliminary voters’ register published online on October 26, 2026.
INEC has maintained that the published document is a preliminary register and that it is reviewing questionable records ahead of the certification of the final Register of Voters.
The controversy has intensified calls for greater transparency and accountability in the management of the voters’ register as preparations gather momentum for the 2027 general elections.
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