As APC vows to stamp out violence in Rivers

By Jimitota Onoyume & Davies Iheamnachor

PORT HARCOURT—DEPUTY Inspector General of Police, Zone 6, Calabar, Mr Sotonye Wakama, yesterday, warned trouble makers to steer clear of Rivers State during and after the re-run elections.

Wakama was redeployed to Rivers State by the Inspector General of Police for the re-run elections.
Meanwhile, the national leadership of All Progressives Congress, APC, has vowed to tame the incessant, yet, strange killings that have been ongoing in Rivers State.
Leaders of the party who visited relatives of the victims in Omoku town, described the killings in the state as genocide against APC members in state.

The party said that the killings which have disrupted the peace in the state would be brought to a halt before and after the National and state Assembly elections slated for this Saturday.
APC made the promise, when the National Working Committee of the party visited the state on a fact finding visit over the killings in the state.

File photo: Police guard some INEC’s voting material during election.

The delegation, led by the National Vice Chairman of the APC, (South) Engr. Segun Oni, who represented the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said it was pitiable that innocent people were slaughtered like animals.

Oni, who was accompanied by the National Women Leader, Mrs. Tijani Ramani, the National Youth Leader, Mr. Dasuki Ibrahim, the Deputy Secretary, Mr. Orji Ngofa, among others, described the killings in the state as strange.
Oni said that killing and beheading victims was reprehensible, adding that same would stop soon.

He vowed that the party will make a passionate appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in the situation.
Meanwhile, DIG Wakama, at the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Port Harcourt, said that the Police will effectively police the state before and after the elections, stressing that it would not hesitate to deal with anyone caught disrupting the electoral process.

Wakama, who was accompanied on the visit to the office of INEC by the AIG Zone 6, Calaba, Adisa Balante, appealed to politicians to play by the rule during the re-run elections, adding that no one will be spared the full wrath of the law if caught disrupting the peace.

“A lot has happened in the state that calls for concern to both the indigenes and residents in the state and beyond. It is for this reason that I have come to the state to address all stake holders involved in the election and to reassure INEC of safe polls and to warn that if anything happens in this state, if we see anybody for any reason doing anything that is untoward, which will harm any individual or destroy any property, we will stretch the elasticity of the law in respect to that offence to fullest extent and deal with such person,” he said.