Wike leads protest against alleged police brutality in Rivers

* Demands immediate transfer of two senior cops THE last is yet to be heard of the legislative rerun election held in Rivers State last Saturday as Governor Nyesom Wike, on Thursday, led thousands of people in a peaceful street protest against the violence and mass killings allegedly perpetrated by the police and other security agencies during the exercise. The protest march took off from the Government House, Port Harcourt at 8am and moved through Azikiwe Street and Bank Road before terminating at the Rivers State Police Command Headquarters on Moscow Road. Other prominent personalities that joined the governor in the protest included his deputy, Dr (Mrs) Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Dabo Adams, former Minister of Transport, Dr Abiye Sekibo, a former UBA chairman, Chief Ferdinand Alabrabra, Former Deputy Governor Tele Ikuru, the state PDP Chairman, Bro Felix Obuah and members of the state cabinet, among others. The police, at the state police command headquarters, closed the gate into the premises, even as the governor and the other leaders waited for close to 30 minutes before the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Cyril Okoro, came out to address the protesters through the gate. [caption id="attachment_39158" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike (right) and the Deputy Commissioner of Rivers State Police Command, Mr Cyril Okoro, during the protest march by Rivers people to the Rivers State Police Command to protest police brutality and killings in Port Harcourt on Thursday.[/caption] In his address, Governor Wike said the people of the state were at the Police Command to inform the authorities that they were tired of the killings of innocent people allegedly by the police and other security operatives. He noted that the people and state government were particularly dissatisfied with the alleged recklessness of the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations), Steven Hasso, and the Commander of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Mr Akin Fakorede, who he said led the onslaught against the people during the rerun election and compromised the security architecture of the state. “On behalf of the Rivers State government and the good people of the state, we have to let the police know that enough is enough. We demand that the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, Hasso and the Commander of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Akin Fakorede, must leave the state. “Since you don’t want to protect the state and you want to be politicians, you have gotten the votes you want to get, you have also gotten the seats you want to get, you can now leave the state. If they don’t leave the state, then we will do all we can to ensure they leave this state. They must leave this state. They have killed innocent people. “We have come here peacefully; communicate this to your superiors in Abuja. I cannot write again, since I have done that repeatedly. Please, I don’t want my people to die anymore. I don’t want armed robbers posted as senior police officers to Rivers State,” Wike said. He also accused the Police High Command of refusing to act despite the overwhelming evidence against the duo, especially the video footage that allegedly showed Fakorede and other security operatives trying to snatch results of the Rivers East Senatorial District during the election, describing as unfortunate a situation where security officials allegedly transformed into politicians. In his response, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyril Okoro, assured the governor that the Rivers State Police Command would pass his message to the Police High Command in Abuja for necessary action. The governor had, in a state broadcast, on Wednesday evening, blamed the widespread violence that greeted the rerun election on some governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), declaring that subversion of the democratic rights of the people of the state were allegedly carefully planned by some highly-placed politicians and selected APC governors. He further alleged that the violence were bankrolled by the governors of Plateau, Benue, Kano and Bauchi states who he said made a donation of N1 Billion each to fund the political crisis witnessed during the rerun election. “If Rivers people could be visited with such a despicably high degree of violence, mayhem and killings by some renegade military and SARS operatives with impunity just to rescue the dying political fortunes of the APC in a mere legislative rerun elections, then we can now begin to imagine what is likely to happen in the state when the political stakes would be very much higher in 2019,” he had said. Source:tribuneonlineng.]]>