•We are in a police state – Rep
•Police spokesman denies disruption
Barely72 hours after the Rivers Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, chased away 13,000 newly-recruited teachers, who wanted to collect their posting letters at the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt, Mbu was at it again yesterday morning.
Over one hundred policemen, on the orders of the controversial police commissioner, disrupted the inauguration of the Rivers Leadership Advancement Foundation (RIVLEAF) in Bonny Island, headquarters of Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.
RIVLEAF members are loyal to the Rivers governor, Rotimi Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF).
The representative of Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro Constituency of Rivers State in the House of Representatives, Dakuku Peterside, declared that with the ugly development, Rivers people were now in a police state.
The chairman of Bonny LG Council, Edward Pepple, described the action of the policemen as barbaric and unexpected in a democracy, stressing that the security personnel initially raided the Bonny Government House Lodge, before disrupting the RIVLEAF's inauguration.
Pepple noted that the policemen invaded all the venues of the inauguration and declared that the members of RIVLEAF, a socio-political organisation, must not gather, stressing that the policemen could not give any justifiable reason for their action.
Peterside, a former Rivers State Commissioner for Works and an ally of Amaechi, said: "Police in Rivers State today (yesterday) at Bonny, stopped the inauguration of RIVLEAF, a non-governmental organisation of young Rivers professionals.
"Police first mobilised over hundred men to storm Bonny Industrial Centre. Then, the organisers moved the event to the Local Government Council. Police also went there to disrupt them.
"They moved it to a private individual's house on Hospital Road, Bonny, yet police went there. Finally, we are in a police state."
The coastal Bonny is the base of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company Limited and the crude oil loading terminal of the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), among other oil and gas firms.
The National President of RIVLEAF, Wele Alex Wele, who is also the Special Adviser on National Economic Affairs to Amaechi, was contacted by telephone for his reaction, but he didn't pick his call, while a text message later sent to him had not been replied as at press time.
When also contacted at 1:54 pm, the Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Kidaya Muhammad, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), said: "I am not aware of disruption of RIVLEAF's inauguration at Bonny," promising to find out and get back, but did not do so.
A senior police officer, who would not want to be named, stated that the Bonny's inauguration of RIVLEAF was not allowed in view of the current ban on demonstrations, protests and unauthorised assemblies, while describing the gathering as political and could lead to the breakdown of law and order.
When reminded that the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, who is also the grand patron of the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), had been moving round the state's 23 LGAs for GDI's inauguration, without police's disruption and preparing to go to Etche LGA this weekend, the police officer said: "No comment."
Amaechi, through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, had earlier stated that Wike had been busy with his 2015 governorship campaigns, contrary to the regulation of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which made it clear that campaigning must only take place 90 days to elections.
The Rivers governor noted that the Minister of State for Education had been busy deceiving his "confused" supporters of mobilising support for the 2015 re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan, while campaigning for his governorship, ignoring the nationwide strike by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), in its third month.
On Friday in Port Harcourt, the organised labour in Rivers State gave the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, and the Police Service Commission (PSC), 21-day ultimatum to redeploy Mbu or face indefinite strike.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Rivers State councils, asked the IGP and the police commissioner to also tender unreserved apology for using teargas to chase away 13,000 newly-recruited teachers, who were at the Liberation Stadium on Wednesday to collect their posting letters.
The River State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Felix Obuah, however, stated that asking 13,000 teachers to collect posting letters at the stadium was unwise and mischievous.
Amaechi and Mbu had been at loggerheads since the police commissioner's redeployment from the Oyo State Command in February, with the NGF chairman declaring that the only condition for peace in the state would be the redeployment of Mbu, who was accused of taking sides and described as a politician.
The Senate and the House of Representatives, in separate resolutions, before they proceeded on recess, also called for the immediate redeployment of the police commissioner, but the IGP later stated that Mbu had been told to be a professional police officer and would remain in Rivers state.
However, a civil society group has appealed to the National Council of State (NCS) to intervene and end what it described as "the reign of terror being orchestrated in Rivers State by Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu who is playing power politics in the state while neglecting his police duties and the crime rate is escalating."
The group, Coalition of Concerned Citizens, Indigenes and Non-Indigenes Residents In Rivers State (CCCINRRS) decried the police blundering in the state, accusing Mbu of a plethora of derelictions while cozying up with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) politicians in the state in a comedy of the absurd which residents of the state do not find funny at all.
It urged the National Council of State to prevail on President Goodluck Jonathan to call Mbu to order because the state police chief's professional non-performance "is a disgrace to our national psyche."
