Rivers rerun: PDP demands independent probe into elections

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blasted Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, over his decision to probe a threatening phone allegedly call made by Governor Nyesom Wike rather than a holistic investigation of the conduct of security agencies during the Rivers rerun election.

In a statement by the national publicity Secretary of the party, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, in Abuja on Tuesday, the party noted that it was “sarcastic” for the IGP to constitute a panel of investigation for the phone call “instead of seeking solution to all the video evidence of the killings and hijacking of electoral materials by the police and other security agencies with some INEC officials during the re-run elections.”

The party pointed out: “For instance in Gokana Local Government Area, men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were seen in a video shooting sporadically to disperse voters and later made away with ballot boxes.

“The same incident occurred in almost all the polling units in Rivers South East Senatorial District, where Senator Magnus Abe was magically declared winner.

“Given the state of war in this entire district between security agencies and Rivers people, we still want to know who voted to make up the results declared for the APC.

“We wish to also remind Nigerians of the Video of two staffers of the INEC caught in the act at the home of an APC chieftain in Opobo Town. These men were taken to the House by officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and were apprehended while thumb-printing and writing of results in favour of the APC.

“Equally, there is a popular video running in various television stations showing the Officer-in- charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), in Rivers State who led his team to INEC Collation Centre in Port Harcourt to hijack election materials.

“We therefore urge the IGP to stop embarrassing Nigeria further and immediately bring to book all those seen in these videos committing electoral offenses. It’s suspicious and dangerous for the IGP to  overlook these breaches of the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act by his men. Nigerians are waiting eagerly for the actions or inactions of the Police in this regard.”

PDP noted that Wike had “exonerated himself of the fabricated threatening phone call” while the PDP also believes that the sudden appearance of a “so called video is only diversionary from the damning  allegations of electoral malpractices by the Police, the Nigerian Army, the NSCDC and the INEC in the just concluded Rivers re-run elections.”

The opposition party stated that assuming without conceding that “the videoed phony phone call should be investigated, the negative actions of the IGP and his men have already created a heavy moral burden on them, and consequently, the  police is not in any position to set up a panel of inquiry against Governor Wike.”

The party therefore vowed to resist any selective investigation by the police or any other agency  on the issue of Rivers elections “because such an attempt is aiming at covering the truth.”

The party called for a holistic investigation into the entire processes of the Re-run Elections before, during and after.

It said the investigation should be conducted by a non-partisan, unbiased and independent presidential committee’ in order “to avoid turning the truth upside down and making villains out of the victims.”

According to PDP,  the outcome will serve as a point of reference for the country’s future elections and the need to protect, nurture and deepen the nation’s  democracy.