Rivers Govt Condemns Police Report on Convoy Attack
Ernest Chinwo
The Rivers State Government has rejected the Nigeria Police report on the clash of the convoys of the state Governor, Nyesom Wike, and the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, saying the “biased report is a sad development for the police force that have chosen to disgrace themselves.”
The State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Emma Okah, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt yesterday noted that the state Commissioner of Police, Zaki Ahmed, had in a statement issued two days ago, said the convoy incident was a minor accident and that investigations did not show how the outrider and his bike were knocked down, even though the man is alive and in his custody.
He also noted that the police commissioner said the governor was 400 metres away from the crime scene but admitted that the governor’s CSO queried a lot of SARS officers who were around the scene.
“This is turning logic upside down,” Okah said, adding that the police did not investigate the matter but acted a script written for it by the Commander of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Mr Akin Fakorede, whom he described as a “bosom friend and hatchet man of the Minister of Transportation and the APC.
“From the totality of the statement of the state Police, it is very obvious that plans and strategies have reached advanced stages to eliminate the state Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, and the incident of last Saturday is a manifestation of the plans of the police,” Okah said.
According to the commissioner, “It is wicked and wrong for the police to treat a state governor like a subordinate of a minister, more so when the police have been receiving tremendous logistics and financial support from the Rivers State Government. Not to recognise the priority of the governor’s convoy over any other convoy in the state except those allowed by law is a national embarrassment. Could this be the reason why the Nigerian police were recently voted as the worst in the world?
“It is deliberate falsehood for the police to say that at the time the outrider got to Nkpogu Junction and intercepted the minister’s black Lexus 750 SUV, the convoy of the governor was 400 metres away. It is even more satanic for the same police to say that they did not know how the outrider fell from his bike when everybody, including the Minister of Transportation, said that he was the one who intentionally knocked down the bike and the rider.”
Okah explained: “The governor’s convoy was a short one on that day and the outrider who is the first part of the convoy was certainly not up to 60 metres away from the governor. If the police was in doubt as to who knocked down the outrider, why did they not ask the rider who they have since detained and are planning to dismiss from service for doing his job?