Amaechi, Rivers CP In Cold ‘War’

The Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Command, Mr. Dan Bature, has reacted to a statement credited to his excellency, Hon. Rotimim Amaechi who accused the commissioner of protecting PDP political candidates and withdrawing the police attached to APC political candidates thereby exposing them to danger. Amaechi accused the commissioner of being biased and working for PDP saying he lacks confidence in him. But the CP in a statement released yesterday reacted to the Governor’s accusations saying most of what he said are far from the truth and the Governor is only bitter because he has refused to release the criminals in his custody, his excellency have asked him to release. Below is part of what the commissioner, Dan Bature said in the press statement released yesterday in Rivers.

“The Rivers State Police Command is once again constrained to respond to the spurious and wispy allegations against it and the false alarm raised by His Excellency, Rt Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, the Executive Governor of Rivers State, to the effect that the Command exposes Hon. Dakuku Peterside to danger by withdrawing policemen attached to him, and unsubstantiated killings and plan to arrest supporters of his party.

“It is strongly believed that the vituperations are frustrating signs of the government’s inability to pressure the Command to release hardened criminals involved in heinous cases of murder, deadly cult activities, unlawful firearms possession, kidnappings and sundry acts of lawlessness that ordinarily would have been charged to court, but for the industrial action of the Rivers State Judiciary.

“Redeployment of C4I Policemen from Hon. Dakuku Peterside to their traditional duties of fighting violent crimes and their immediate replacement with the elite Special Protection Unit has now been attributed to withdrawal of the policemen attached to him.

“Cases of cultists-related clashes that sometime resulted in deaths have suddenly been attributed to killing of political party supporters. The alleged killing of seven supporters of a political party is not only unfounded as the Command has not received such report.

“What a mathematical wonder! Six suspects arrested and charged to court for unlawful possessions of firearms have now become over 400 supporters of a political party in our custody.

“The allegation of the purported plan to arrest 307 leaders of a political party is nothing but a ruse to whip up public sympathy. The Command has no plan to arbitrarily arrest anybody. Anyone who is not planning to cause or foster violence or breach public peace has no cause to fear or raise false alarm.”

The Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, however responded swiftly  to the commissioner’s statement saying he is being economical with the truth.

 “The Rivers State Commissioner of Police is economical with the truth. Everybody knows that Amaechi cannot support the request that hardened criminals should be released from police custody’’.

She however further said the police in the state have been arresting innocent people, mostly APC members for no reason and hanging charges on them.

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About Unknown

Deji Sadiq, a.k.a DEJI OF LAGOS is a LASU trained Economist turned freelance journalist, a Blogger, an information strategist, a public affairs analyst and a committed activist with a passion for equal opportunities.