There was mild drama yesterday as the police prevented Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi from gaining access to the Government House through the back gate.
Governor Amaechi is one of the G-7 governors who broke away from the PDP to form a factional body, the new PDP.
The police action came on the heels of the sealing off of the new PDP office on the route that leads to the Government House, along the Forces Avenue in Old GRA of the city.
Governor Amaechi, who is also the chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), has been having a running battle with the presidency and the leadership of the PDP since he defied the party’s directive not to run for the chairmanship of the NGF. He has since been under suspension from the party.
The action of the police came barely 48 hours to the resumption of truce talks in Abuja on Sunday.
LEADERSHIP FRIDAY gathered that the governor, who had been at the Port Harcourt International Airport to receive President Goodluck Jonathan to Rivers State, was on his way to Government House when policemen, acting on the orders of the commissioner of police, Rivers State command, Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu, stopped his convoy.
LEADERSHIP FRIDAY however gathered that the governor’s convoy made a U-turn and passed through the main gate of the Government House, making it possible for the governor to have free access to his official residence.
A mild drama occurred at the scene as Governor Amaechi was said to have alighted from his vehicle to find out what was wrong, but he was told by the policemen that they had instructions to block the road, which is the major route to the Government House.
The development was said to have elicited altercations between the policemen and the governor’s security team but had to be brought under control as the governor made a U-turn and made his way to the Government House through another route.
For more than four months now, the Rivers CP, Mbu, and Governor Amaechi have been at each other’s throat with accusations and counter-accusations renting the air as the political crisis continues unabated.
Men of the Rivers State Police Command on Thursday sealed off the secretariat of the Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led new PDP in Port Harcourt, the state capital. The action of the police came barely 30 minutes after it was officially opened.
The one-storey structure, which was officially opened by the chief of staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Hon. Tony Okocha, is located opposite the Old GRA Police Station, along Forces Avenue in the Old GRA of the state capital.
LEADERSHIP FRIDAY observed that Okocha and officials of the Godspower Ake-led faction of the PDP in the state had hardly concluded the hoisting of the ruling party’s flag in front of the building when plain-clothed policemen, led by the deputy commissioner of police in charge of the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Mr Sam Ogaora, forced themselves into the building and ordered that the exercise be stopped.
After a heated argument with Okocha on the legality or otherwise of opening a parallel party secretariat in the state, Ogaora ordered the plain-clothed policemen, who were later joined by uniformed security operatives from the Old GRA police station, to pull down the poles and the flag.
He also ordered the policemen to chase out everyone, including party officials, aides to Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and journalists, who had gone to cover the ceremony, from the vicinity.
The SCID boss thereafter called for a re-enforcement of over 10 patrol vehicles from the state police headquarters to enable the police take full control of the complex, which once served as the campaign headquarters of Amaechi in 2011.
LEADERSHIP FRIDAY observed that journalists, who made efforts to capture the action of the policemen, were manhandled; the camera of a photo-journalist with the Sun Newspapers, Mr Obed Mpiegbulem, was destroyed by one of the plain-clothed policemen.
Justifying his action, Ogaora told journalists that the opening of the parallel secretariat of the PDP in the state was illegal, pointing out that the police would not fold their hands and allow some persons to contravene law and order in the state.
He said, “What we have done here is to stop any illegality. We will go all out to stop any illegality; anybody that contravenes law and order will be dealt with. We don’t have any PDP secretariat here.”
Source: Leadership
