13th January, 2015
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
After the bombing of its secretariat in Okrika and physical attacks on its supporters, hundreds of All Progressives Congress (APC) members in Obio/Akpor local government area of Rivers state on Monday staged a peaceful protest to the state headquarters of Nigeria Police and office of the Department of State Security (DSS) in Port Harcourt, over incessant attacks on them.
The protest came less than 48 hours after members of the APC were attacked during their rally at Ward 10, Rumueme in Obio-Akpor community of the area, leading to the hospitalization of no fewer than six members of the party.
The Chief of Staff, Government House, Tony Okocha, led the protest along with chairman, Caretaker Committee, Obio/Ákpor local government council, Dr. Lawrence Chuku in company of a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ike Samuel Chinwo, who marched through major streets, before heading to the main entrance of the Police headquarters on Moscow Road, Port Harcourt.
Some of the placards displayed by the protesters read, “Are APC members in Obio/Akpor not Nigerians?”, “Police stop encouraging violence in Obio/Akpor”, “APC will resist Police intimidation”, and “Police, enough is enough”, amongst others.
Speaking to newsmen during the protest Okocha said they were protesting series of violent attacks on members of the party in the area, which began on 3 January 2015.
Okocha said, “We are protesting against the orgy of violence in Obio/Akpor local government supervised by the police against the APC members in Obio/Akpor local government area. We have stated the cases in point. First is that on January 3, I was assaulted personally by Timothy Nsirim, (a former Chairman of Obio-Akpor local Government council and we made a complaint to the police, not even an invitation from the police on Timothy nor any query on him.
“So, he is walking tall on the streets of Port Harcourt, and he is still boasting that they will do more mayhem as they did to me on the January 3. And to make good his boast, on Saturday about seven APC members, who were holding a meeting were attacked in Rumueme.
“As if that was not enough, yesterday night, the leader of our party in Rumuolumeni and two of our members, the youth leader and one other person are lying critically ill from injuries inflicted on them by PDP members, this time in the presence of the police. They are lying critically in the hospital. We are fed up with this. We are on the verge of self-help but we want Nigerians to know our position before we resort to self help.”
Addressing the protesters at Police headquarters, the commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Dan Bature said the Police would look into the complaints of members of APC in Obio/Akpor, with a view to addressing them so that events leading to the February polls would be under firm control.
Bature said, “Issues that have been raise, we are going to address them and ensure justice to everybody. That is our determined objective. All I expect from you is to be lawful; I also expect you to pass the message down the line because we don’t want to heat up the polity.
“We want situations to be under firm control. We want to prove wrong our detractors who said Nigeria cannot get it right. We will get it right this time around. The Federal Government has assured everybody, all Nigerians that 2015 elections will be the best and we are determined to succeed in making it the best.
“The Nigeria Police is a very responsible organization. The Nigeria Police as an institution, we are determined to provide security for everybody. We are determined to maintain a level playing ground for everybody. I want to use this opportunity to assure everybody here that we appreciate your peaceful demonstration, it is a normal thing in democracy. What I want to assure you is that we will ensure that we perform our duties and upper most in our duty is to ensure that we protect the lives and property of all Nigerians.
“I want to disabuse your mind over one or two matters which I heard from your leaders. We will provide security. Ensure that you carry out all your activities lawfully, internally activities, political activities, and social activities. Ensure that you go about all your activities within the confines of the law; that we are determined to provide for you,” Bature assured.