Many people, mostly protesters believed to be members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some journalists were injured Wednesday morning when operatives of the Nigerian Police fired gunshots and teargas canisters to disperse the crowd which had gathered and were threatening to cause the breach of the peace at the state secretariat of the party.
The protesters, numbering over 3,000, include the party’s aspirants for Rivers State House of Assembly as well as the National Assembly who had come to the place for their screening exercise.
Information had it that the placard-carrying protesters were aggrieved over the alleged hijack of officials of the APC Screening Committee panel, that came to the state to screen aspirants.
Trouble started when some of the protesters attempted to force the main gate of the APC secretariat, located along Woji Road in GRA, Port Harcourt, open forcing policemen attached to the secretariat to fire gunshots into the air to ward them off.
A team of riot policemen who later came along with an armoured personnel carrier (APC) arrived to reinforce the team at the secretariat and started firing gunshots and teargas canisters, forcing the protesters to scamper for safety.
But that was not before some hoodlums tried to seize the opportunity to attack people in the crowd, including journalists and in the process dispossessing some of their phones and other belongings and injuring others in the process.
Speaking with newsmen, one of the protesters and an aspirant for Ikwerre Constituency in the Rivers State House of Assembly, Dr Anosike Orduwa, said the aspirants will resist any injustice from the leadership of APC.
Orduwa said: “I spent my hard-earned money to buy this (House of Assembly) form; I will resist any injustice. We will resist them; you cannot defraud us and deprive us of our rights.
“The injustice now is one; the materials for today’s congress are not here (party secretariat). The committee for the Congress, they are not here. They are supposed to screen us first. They are not in this place where we are.
“We want to say for the last time, that a word is enough for the wise. We will resist impunity; we will resist every power that wants to stop the majority from contesting an election.”
Also reacting, Sir Tony Okocha, a member of the Sen. Magnus Abe’s faction of the party said he was also a victim of the brute-force procured displayed by the police which he alleged was procured by the Chibuike Amaechi group.
He said the exercise was to have commenced with a stakeholder meeting with the panel deployed to Rivers State and later, distribution of materials and personnel to the 319 wards in the state.
“That never took place”, he alleged, saying: “The panel upon arrival to Rivers State, was hijacked by Amaechi and lodged in a hotel and handed down a script to enact.
An attempt by party members to demand the implementation of the rules via a peaceful action, saw Amaechi and his group, deploying militants aided by the Police, to sporadically shoot at harmless protesters.”
When contacted, the state publicity secretary of APC, Chris Finebone, said the protesters were misguided as the ward congress was taking place simultaneously in the 319 wards of the state.
Finebone said: “I don’t know what they mean by hijack. The exercise (ward congress) is going on in the 319 wards; the exercise is not held at the party secretariat.
“They (protesters) were misguided and they came to cause all sorts of problems at the party secretariat. So, we called in the police and they are gone.”
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