Rivers Panel Dismisses Petition By Oyigbo Lawyers Seeking End To IPOB Activities

The Rivers State Judicial Commission of Inquiry on Police brutality, on Thursday, struck out a petition by Oyigbo Indigenous Lawyers Association (OILA) seeking an end to the activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Oyigbo Local Government Area.

The lawyers who claimed they were acting on behalf of the entire people of Oyigbo Local Government Area, also demanded that the Rivers State government should rebuild all the public infrastructure destroyed in the area when hoodlums hijacked the #EndSARS protest in the area.

But the Hon Justice Chukwunenye Uriri-led Commission dismissed the petition saying that the matter has nothing to do with the terms of reference of the Commission, which has to do with police brutality.

Speaking with newsmen shortly after, OILA’s counsel, O.C Higher-King, said the proscribed IPOB successfully hoisted its flag in Oyigbo because they felt that the area had been abandoned by the state government.

Higher-King said: “We came here basically to assist the Commission; we did our private findings and found out that there was actually police brutality and military brutality and other people during the mayhem in Oyigbo. We discovered that and we documented and brought to the Commission.

“Although we have several indigenes of Oyigbo we know that were brutalised by the police and military but we wanted to come as a neutral body, an association of eminent lawyers on Oyigbo to present to the panel.

“We recommend that the state government take over Oyigbo and own Oyigbo because a bride that is abandoned is public property. It is not just this government that abandoned us, previous governments. That is the problem we have, but they have stuck it out.

“We also demanded that they should rebuild all the damaged infrastructure in Oyigbo including police stations and all the courts. In fact, everything that was destroyed. You can see those recommendations were actually not supposed to be struck out but that is the law for now.

“We further demanded that the state government should do all it can to curtail the excesses of IPOB and all that because they have been alleged to be the people that destroyed those things and all that with the military and the police.”