Group raises alarm over allege plot to frame up Alaibe

By Samuel Oyadongha, Yenagoa

The Timi Alaibe Campaign Organisation has raised alarm of an alleged plan by the Bayelsa State government to frame up their principal, the Labour Party governorship aspirant over last Friday violent attack on his supporters at his Opokuma country home in which two persons were killed and six others injured.

Vanguard reliably gathered that than thirty one persons were arrested in connection with the attack by the Joint Task Force and handed over to the police for further interrogation.

The Alaibe’s group claim that the government had orchestrated plan to implicate their principal in the Opokuma attack is coming on the heels of the Chairman of the CNPP in Bayelsa State, Sunday Frank-Oputu called on the state governor, Chief Timipre Sylva to set up a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate the alleged rival cult clash at the hometown of the Labour Party’s governorship candidate, Mr. Timi Alaibe, accusing him of being culpable in the loss of the two persons.

Frank-Oputu had in an interview with newsmen said investigations conducted by the CNPP into the incident showed that the governorship candidate of the Labour Party was culpable with the alleged hiring of rival cult groups without clear knowledge on their rivalry and could not stop the confrontation that ensured from the Port Harcourt Airport and the Opokuma Community in Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Council of the State.

But the Director of Publicity of the Alaibe Campaign Organisation, Mr. Douye Diri, in a statement alleged that information at its disposal indicates that once these groups and persons paid for the project, intensify their calls, the state government would proceed to set up a so-called Judicial Commission of Inquiry which it would task to indict Chief Alaibe at all costs and consequently move for his arrest and prosecution over the attacks on his own home and supporters.

The group said it was not surprised at this antic of the government as it was aimed at “diverting the attention of security agencies from the very obvious fact of the state government’s involvement in the dastardly murder of innocent supporters of Chief Alaibe in Opokuma last Friday.”

It added “that discerning Nigerians have not stopped wondering how the Bayelsa State government came into the hurried conclusion, less than 24 hours after the sad event, that it was a clash of rival cult groups invited to welcome Chief Alaibe home. Why is the Bayelsa State government bent on preempting and prejudicing investigations?”

The group noted that the murderers who were sent to kill and maim at Opokuma lurked around and waited for an opportune time to strike and that the time came when thousands of joyous supporters were already seated in canopies in the Alaibe residence.

“The very determined attackers were at the verge of entering the building with assorted weapons and arsenals when they were confronted by both youth groups and security agencies. The clash that ensued led to unfortunate deaths and severe injuries,” the group said.

It added, “Even when it is conceded that it is the duty of security agencies to investigate and unravel the circumstances that led to the unprovoked attack on innocent citizens of Bayelsa State at the reception in Opokuma, the Timi Alaibe Campaign Organisation has every reason to assert that the attack and murder of innocent Bayelsans last Friday was planned, funded and executed by agents of the Bayelsa State government.

“The attack is only a feeble attempt to intimidate and scare the long suffering people of Bayelsa State who are clearly resolute in their determination to put a new government in place in the State by May 2011.”

The group described as laughable the Bayelsa State government claim that the attack on supporter of Alaibe in Opokuma was a clash of two cult groups supposedly invited to welcome Alaibe home.

“Like all discerning Bayelsans, we want to ask: Did General Muhammadu Buhari, the Presidential candidate of the CPC also invite cult members to welcome him to Bayelsa when the same agents of the state government unleashed terror on his supporters? Did gubernatorial aspirants, Chief Beimo-Spiff, Peremobowei Ebebi and Famous Daunemigha also invite cult groups to their rallies that were disrupted by the agents of the Bayelsa State government?” the group queried.

Meanwhile, the government through the state Commissioner for Information, Nathan Egba, in a statement made available to newsmen exonerated the government from the alleged plot saying persons who had no involvement in the violence need not be afraid and should support all efforts to get to the root of the matter.

The government also dismissed claim by the Timi Alaibe campaign outfit that it (government) has commissioned groups to call for the setting up of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry aimed at indicting the Labour Party aspirant for instigating the recent attack on his own supporters.

According to the statement, “Alaibe who saw the hand writing clearly on the wall and cowardly defected to the Labour Party in order to avoid the embarrassment of being trounced at the primaries, do not constitute even the least political worry to Governor Timipre Sylva.

“It is therefore difficult to understand why government would want to sponsor violence on innocent people that is its duty to protect,” said adding that there was relative peace in the state until Mr. Alaibe’s governorship ambition became public knowledge and now all these violence.

Describing the Alaibe’s camp alarm as uncalled for the government in the statement said, “anybody who has no involvement in the violence has no reason to fear and should in fact support all efforts to get to the root of the matter.”

In its reaction, the Labour Party in the state faulted the position of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) on the call on the state government to set up a Judicial Panel of Inquiry into the Friday killing by armed youths at the country home of Alaibe saying such call is a deliberate attempt to witch hunt the candidate of the party and confuse the investigation of the state police command.

State Chairman of the Labour Party, Comrade Bobo Atari-Adou, described the position of the CNPP as “mischievous” and “sponsored.”

He said, “it is unfortunate that when the series of killings of perceived government oppositions were being carried out by some paid killers in some parts of the state, there was no calls for the setting up of a Judicial Panel of Inquiry by the CNPP. The security agencies have assured the party of their readiness to arrest the killers. We urge the CNPP and their sponsors to be patient as the faces of killers will be unveiled.”

The Labour Party chairman wondered when the CNPP became the media arm of the state government.

“Is CNPP is media arm of the state government? It is shameful. We have discovered that the call is the first in the series of plot by some persons in government to seek for a kangaroo indictment of the Labour Party candidate and attempts to throw the state into unimaginable confusion,” he said.