The leadership of the Ikwerre Local Government chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has decried the alleged harassment, intimidation and attack on its members in the LGA by the police in the area.
Speaking at a press briefing in Port Harcourt at the weekend, the Commissioner in charge of the Ministry of Lands and Survey in the state, Barr. Ezemonye Ezekiel-Amadi told newsmen how the police collaborated with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to unleash terror on the APC members in the LGA.
The Commissioner alleged that several of APC posters and campaign materials have been destroyed by the members of the PDP. He accused the police of being biased and supporting the wrong doing of the PDP.
His words, “Reports of the destruction of these APC billboards were lodged with the Police Command in Ikwerre Local Government Area particularly the Isiokpo Division.
Nothing came out of the reports and nobody was arrested. We were neither surprised nor agitated”.
Ezekiel-Amadi recalled that on January 21, 2015, members of the PDP in Omuanwa Town in the LGA went after the supporters of the APC, destroying APC banners and posters and shooting sporadically and chasing members, especially those who recently decamped from the PDP to the APC in the community.
Sadly, the Commissioner further recalled that, “on Saturday January 24, 2015 between the hours of 10-11am, the DPO in Isiopko ordered his men into Omuanwa town to arrest Mr. Lazarus Woka, who a couple of days ago led a group of politicians from Omuanwa town who dumped the PDP for the APC”.
According to the Commissioner, no amount of police intimidation will stop his party members from exercising their franchise in the next month’s general election.
Ezekiel-Amadi told journalists how one Chibuike Olocha was arrested by the police at Igwuruta community for supporting APC. He noted with regret that, Mr. Olocha was beaten and tortured, adding that he was close to death from the beating he had received earlier, adding that two days after his release from detention, he died. The Commissioner concluded by saying that “what we ask is that the police in our local government should be neutral and abate the wanton cruelty on innocent APC members. A partisan police is not a requirement for true democracy”. ###
