The Rivers State Government has expressed sadness over the dismissal of six police officers attached to Governor Nyesom Wike by the Nigeria Police Force.
State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Dr. Austin Tam-George, said in a statement issued on Friday, that the state government was sad over the decision of the Nigeria Police Force to dismiss the police officers.
According to Tam-George, “The Rivers State Government notes with infinite sadness the decision of the Nigeria Police to dismiss six police officers attached to Governor Nyesom Wike.
“The police officers were subjected to a secret and unfair trial on totally fictitious charges of professional misconduct during the rerun elections in Rivers State on the 10th of December 2016. This is a tragic day for professionalism and the respect for human rights in the Nigeria Police Force.”
The Information commissioner explained that the dismissed officers committed no crime by foiling an orchestrated electoral heist by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission in collusion with the All Progressives Congress and the Nigeria Police Force.
He also described the claim by the police that the affected officers misused their firearms while in Wike’s convoy on December 10, 2016 as a wrong and cruel fabrication.
Tam-George said, “Governor Wike did not depart from his official premises on the day of the election and therefore, had no use for an armed convoy.
“Two days after the elections, on the 12th of December 2016, thousands of Rivers people led by Governor Wike resisted an invasion by the police on the premises of the Port Harcourt City Local Government Council in a brazen attempt to rig the elections in favour of the APC.
“Throughout the period of the stand-off between the invading police officers and the thousands of citizens who resisted them, Governor Wike and the officers around him conducted themselves with utmost restraint.
“The dismissed officers are therefore the latest victims of the medieval dictatorship of the APC government. A government that seems to lurch blindly in the miasma of its own incompetence and intolerance.”
