The All Progressives Congress, APC, has warned President Goodluck Jonathan to stop the impunity exhibited during the blockade of the Rivers State Government House last week, saying such arrogance of power was a mere cheap political vendetta and violation of the constitution.
The party in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the police could not have had the audacity to act the way it did in blocking Governor Chibuike Amaechi and his guests from his residence if they were not acting the script from higher authorities.
It, however, warned that giving presidential backing to the police or any national institution to commit impunity and violate the nation's constitution is the fastest means to destroy such institutions and erode public confidence in them.
"In the case of the police, what is happening in Rivers is sending a wrong signal to the polity concerning the role of the force in 2015.
How can a malleable police be trusted to be neutral and to help ensure the conduct of a free and fair election – with the President as a candidate – in 2015?" the APC queried.
Regretting that the Nigeria Police Force has become a tool in the hands of the President to harass, intimidate, arrest and persecute all his real and perceived political enemies, the APC stated: "Since the onset of the President Jonathan- inspired political logjam in Rivers State and the implosion of his party, the PDP, the President has been depending on the Nigeria Police to shore up his dwindling political fortune. The insubordination of the Rivers State Super Police Commissioner Mbu; the police-sponsored fracas in the Rivers State House of Assembly; the assault on the five visiting governors by thugs working under the direction and protection of the state Commissioner of Police and the unlawful occupation of the new PDP secretariats at Abuja and Lagos are clear examples."
The party noted that as far as the crisis in Rivers is concerned, the buck stops on the President's desk.
