PDP alleges plot by FG to destabilise Rivers

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the “Nigerian Police may have become a partisan tool and compromised instrument” in the hands of the APC-led Federal Government to destabilise PDP held states, particularly Rivers State.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisah Metuh, stated this in a statement on Friday when he called for the immediate unsealing of local councils in the State by the Police.

PDP accused the Police of playing double standard in barring caretaker committees lawfully appointed by the state government from taking charge of the Area councils in Rivers State.

Metuh described the action as unconstitutional, reprehensible abuse of power and brazen show of partisanship, just as it fingered the All Progressives Congress, APC-led federal government as the mastermind, using its controlled police to carry out the act.

Metuh stressed that the action of the police was an affront to the ruling of the High Court, which Thursday dissolved the 22 local government councils unlawfully imposed on the state by the immediate past administration, upon which the caretaker committees were appointed by Governor Nyesom Wike.

The party said “it was curious that the police allowed the dissolution of local government councils and appointment of caretaker committees in APC controlled Plateau and Kaduna states, even when they were without the orders of the court but elected to clamp down on that of Rivers State, which came as a result of judicial pronouncement.”

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It therefore charged the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase to come out clean on the matter and assure the nation of the non-partisanship of the police by ordering the immediate unsealing of the councils.

The party said Nigerians and the international community should note the development, which “is a yet another clear indication that the Nigerian police may have become a partisan and compromised instrument in the hands of the APC federal government to destabilize PDP controlled states, particularly Rivers State.

Men of the Rivers State Police Command, had earlier in the day barricaded entrances into the secretariats of 22, out of the 23 local government councils in the state, denying the newly sworn in caretaker committees access to the councils.

A Federal High Court in Port Harcourt had yetsrday nullified the election of 22 local government chairmen and councilors, prompting Wike to immediately submit names of nominees for chairmen and members of caretaker committees for the councils to the state Assembly, where they were screened and cleared and thereafter sworn in by the governor at a brief ceremony at Government House, Port Harcourt late Thursday night.

But the policemen who took over the council secretariats, said their action was based on intelligence they received that some persons were planning violence in reaction to the court’s sacking of the council chairmen elected at the twilight of ex-Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s administration.

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