The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has alleged of a plot by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to use the police to clamp down on its leaders, including the party’s governorship candidate, Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, and his running mate, Hon Okorie Asita, with a view to keeping them out of circulation during the forthcoming general elections.
Chairman of the APC in the state, Dr Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Monday also alleged that the PDP was planning to use the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the State Police Command to carry out the arrests.
According to Ikanya, “Our attention has been drawn to a sinister plot by the Rivers State PDP in conjunction with the Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) of the State Police Command to launch what they call the mother of all operations code-named ‘Operation Total Crippling of Rivers APC’, aimed at ensuring that none of our leaders walks the streets freely during the forthcoming elections.
“The strategy to be adopted is for the PDP leadership to come up with fabricated petitions alleging that the 300 APC leaders to be arrested are cultists, kidnappers or armed robbers. The plot is to keep at bay all the strong men behind the election of the APC candidates until after the elections of March 28 and April 11, 2015.
“Should this ploy fail, both Dr. Dakuku Peterside and Hon Asita Okorie Asita, the gubernatorial and deputy gubernatorial candidates respectively of Rivers APC, shall be arrested and kept incommunicado until after the elections.
“Part of the strategy is to plant guns in the residences and business outfits of some of the leading APC leaders and use the Police to search and arrest them accordingly. The
Special Unit has already swung into action, doing the bidding of the PDP by arresting some of those in the 300-man list,” he said.
Rivers State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr. Davies Ikanya on Monday expressed confidence that the people of the South-South geopolitical zone would vote massively for his party’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), come March 28, 2015.
Dr. Ikanya, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt and signed by his media aide, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, congratulated the APC standard bearer on a successful campaign rally in the zone, saying that there is no comparing him to President Goodluck Jonathan when it comes to caring for the welfare of the people of the zone.
The statement reads in part, “There is nothing to compare between General Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan when it comes to caring for the welfare of the people of the South-South. While President Jonathan has confessed that he deliberately refused to develop Rivers State and the entire South-South, General Buhari built one of the refineries in South-South and constructed the only road that links Bayelsa with Rivers State.
“This shows that if he is given another opportunity, he will develop the South-South more than President Jonathan, who has refused to develop the region and therefore does not deserve the people’s vote. The people of the South-South will indeed vote massively for General Buhari and other APC candidates for the various elections on March 28 and April 11.”
The APC state chairman, who extolled Buhari for promising to fight corruption frontally upon assumption of office as Nigeria’s next president, asserted that, “The party agrees with Buhari that if we don’t fight corruption, corruption will kill us as a nation. We are privileged to have Buhari as our presidential candidate; he is the bullet we have to fight corruption and after March 29, 2015 when General Buhari would have being announced as the President elect of Nigeria, corruption will be reduced by 80 per cent.”
