Leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 23 local government areas of Rivers State have decried what they called a triangular onslaught against the party by the alliance of Federal Government, police, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
They accordingly vowed to resist any further intimidation, and arrests of their members by the Nigeria Police, working in collaboration with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The development came on the heels of the allegation by APC leaders their chairman, Caretaker Committee of Ikwerre local government area, Nwobueze Amadi, escaped death on the morning of Thursday, March 26 2015, 48 hours to March 28 elections.
Amadi , at the briefing in Rivers government House, narrated how gunmen dressed in Police uniform forced their way into his residence at Isiokpo, headquarters of the local government council and started shooting sporadically.
Addressing newsmen on behalf of the 23 council chairmen, the CTC chairman of Eleme local government area of the state, Hon. Oji Ngofa, also alleged that seven members of the party were arrested in Gokana local government area of the state on Wednesday night, by men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
Ngofa, who is also the Assistant National Secretary of the APC called on Nigerians to prevail on security agencies, especially, the Nigeria Police to do the right thing, pointing out that nobody has the right to stop members of the party to exercise their civic duties on the Election Day.
He said, “From this point as a political party, we will not sit back anymore and allow the Police, in collaboration with the PDP to intimidate our members. Just as we are here now, guns are booming in Ikwerre local government area. The Caretaker Committee chairman just escaped death in Ikwerre LGA. The same situation has occurred in Bonny, and most council chairmen here are practically living out of their homes because we are constantly being followed by white Hilux vans.
“The same situation applies to most of our key and strategic party leaders of our party. We want to let the whole world know that as a political party, nobody can limit our capacity to defend ourselves. We believe that the Police should be impartial and protect everybody, but we are beginning to see a situation where they are pushing us to the wall, and we have no other alternative than to begin to defend ourselves.
“Last night, seven APC members were arrested by SARS in Bori, for no reason, but for just belonging to the APC. All they are trying to do is to weaken our support base and give their people advantage on Saturday. We will not be intimidated. I want to make this known once again to the whole world that this is what is going on. We cannot continue like this; we must tame this level of desperation being perpetuated by the PDP in Rivers State.
“We want to call on all well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the security agencies and to make them do the right thing. We have election just two days from today, and nobody has the right to stop us from exercising our civic duties and our franchise. We belong to a political party, and we have candidates that we are supporting and we must be out on Saturday to do the needful.
“We, once again want to call the attention of the security agencies, we have been on the streets; we have protested to the Commissioner of Police. They have promised to look into the complaints we have made, and up till now, nothing seems to have been done. The same intimidation, the same trump-up charges, the same arrests have been going on; all targeted at members of our party.” they had stated