The police said yesterday that they recovered N111.3 million from
23 Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials who conducted the
December 10, 2016 rerun in Rivers State.
The cash, they claimed, is part of the N360 million bribe allegedly
paid by Governor Nyesom Wike to compromise
electoral and security officials for
his party’s candidates to win.
The unnamed officials have been indicted for their involvement in
the violence that occurred during the election, the police said.
Six policemen indicted for their role during the election have
been dismissed. They are to be prosecuted.
This is part of the report of the Joint Investigation Panel
constituted by Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris on December
22, 2016, to probe the violence that led to the killing of two policemen during
the election.
The report was submitted to the IG at the Force Headquarters in
Abuja yesterday.
But the governor rejected the report as “malicious, defamatory and
reckless”. He denied all the claims by the panel, which he accused of being
biased.
The 12-member panel comprises nine policemen and three Department
of State Services (DSS) personnel. It was mandated to investigate the various
infractions, incidents, and violence that marred the rerun.
The panel attributed the violence to lawlessness and leadership
failure.
The chairman of the panel, Damian Okoro, a Deputy Commissioner of
Police (DCP), said N111.3 million was recovered from 23 INEC officers. He
said three senior electoral officers collected N20 million each of the
N360 million allegedly given to them by Wike. The remaining officers received
N15 million each.
Okoro said the committee established “cases of misconduct on the
part of some electoral officers and law enforcement agents who, unfortunately,
allowed themselves to be compromised in their line of duties and deserve to be
disciplined appropriately.”
He added that “the task given to the panel was quite challenging
because of the tense political and security situation in the state, especially
the prevalence of violent crimes, such as armed robbery, kidnapping, and
politically motivated killings, by militant and culture groups that enjoy the
funding and protection of desperate politicians.
“These lawless elements target not only the political opponents of
their sponsors but also law enforcement agents, especially the police, mostly
within the Ogba/Ndoni/Egbema Local Government Area, which is the axis of evil
of cultism.
“The violence that occurred in Rivers State, before during and
after the rerun was a reflection of lawlessness and leadership failure of
narrow-minded politicians and their gullible supporters. Oftentimes,
politicians make inflammatory statements that incite their supporters into
avoidable violence that results in the destruction of lives and properties and
eruption of elections.
“Regrettably, these politicians often fail to realise that as very
important personalities in their own right, they are the embodiment of some
values cherished by their supporters.
“Apart from their utterances, politicians, in their desperation
for political power also arm thugs and unleash terror on their opponents. When
motivated by their sponsors these criminal elements can do anything to further
the political aspirations of their principals, including extra- judicial
killings and rigging of elections with impunity.
Okoro went on: “We discovered that failure of leadership and
followership rather than law enforcement was responsible for political upheaval
in the state.”
A source close to the investigation confirmed that forensic
analysis showed that Wike’s was the voice the one in a controversial tape that
went viral on the social media following its leakage to an online medium.
The source, pleading for anonymity, said: “After forensic analysis
was conducted, it was discovered that the voice was truly that of the governor.
Also, those indicted were interviewed and they confessed on video tape that the
governor gave them money. They explained how they were invited and escorted
back to their hotel rooms with money in different bags.
“We also discovered that the governor withdrew N2billion from the
government coffers for the purpose of rigging the rerun. Imagine what the money
would have been used for. The money would have built many schools, hospitals
and a lot of things.”
The IG said the panel wrote to Wike but he refused to cooperate.
He said its report and recommendations would be forwarded to the
Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, for further action.
Said Idris: “The Panel tackled what has been going on in this
country where politicians have turned election into a do-or-die affair and we
have been failing in this country because we have allowed things to derail to
this level.
“I see no reason why a rerun will lead to the beheading of our officers
who were there to do their lawful duties. I believe that the report will go a
long way to put an end to individuals seeing election as a do-or-die affair.
“We will take appropriate actions in conjunction with the law
officer of the federation, the Attorney General of the Federation, in order to
put an end to most of the abuses and electoral violence in this country.
”People that were arrested are going to be prosecuted because they
are public officers. We are going to forward the report and our recommendation
to the Attorney General of the Federation.”
On the source of the recovered money, the police chief said: “From
the confession of those the money was recovered from, they said the money was
from the state government. I can assure you that from here, the money will go
into government treasury because these are recoveries on the basis of an
investigation conducted.
“Six police officers were indicted and they have already been
dismissed and I can assure you that they would also be charged to court.”
Asked about the doubt Wike had on the panel and if its report was
not targeted at tarnishing his image, Idris said: “it is a joint investigation
and that means it is between the police and SSS and I think the whole of this
country have confidence in both agencies to provide security for them and to
deal with issues that are detrimental to peaceful co-existence of Nigerians in
any part of this country.
“We are in a democracy and everybody has the right of free speech.
Anybody can wake up any day and say anything but what I am saying is that you
have to go through the report to see the processes we took before arriving at
where we are.
“The investigation was open and very transparent. We wrote to the
governor, they went to meet him but, in his own wisdom, he refused to
cooperate. We believe that what determines outcome of this report is the
transparency and the good will.
“Whoever that is involved has been arrested and isolating the
governor will be a disservice to this country.
The report should be seen as a corrective measure. Those indicted
cut across different classes of life.
The IG described the manner in which two policemen were killed as “barbaric”.
The IG described the manner in which two policemen were killed as “barbaric”.
Report shameful, defamatory, reckless, says Wike
The Governor Nyesom Wike administration in Rivers State has
condemned alleged blackmail by the committee set up by the Inspector-General of
Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to probe the December 10 last year’s
bloody legislative rerun, describing the police’s action as “shameful”,
“defamatory” and “reckless”.
Commissioner for Information and Communications Dr. Austin
Tam-George yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital claimed that
the committee was being economical with the truth.
Tam-George said: “The attention of the Rivers State Government has
been drawn to the melodramatic images of heaps of cash, circulated in the media
by the so-called police panel of inquiry into the rerun elections in Rivers
State, on the 10th of December, 2016.
“According to the police, the heaps of money were ‘evidence’ of
bribe allegedly given to officials of the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, during the rerun
polls.
“We consider the allegations of the police as shameful, defamatory
and reckless in the extreme. Never in the annals of infamy have we seen a vital
state security institution descend to the lowest depths of blackmail and
criminality, as the Nigeria Police Force has done in this case.
“A month ago, we alerted the world to the dark, Orwellian plot by
the Nigeria police to implicate Governor Wike in a phoney bribe scandal. Now,
the police appear to be acting with shocking predictability, by making wild and
completely groundless allegations against Governor Wike.
“The Rivers State Government challenges the Nigeria Police to show
proof that Governor Wike financially induced any official of INEC. Do the
police have bank records of the purported transactions between Governor Wike
and the electoral officers? We challenge the Nigeria police to move quickly to
prosecute and imprison the so-called electoral officers on the basis of this
dubious investigation.”
Tam-George said Wike’s administration strongly believed that the
committee was part of a bitter, politically-driven smear campaign, allegedly
launched by the Federal Government against the state governor and the people.
He noted that the government also believed that the police were
desperately seeking to divert attention from the alleged disgraceful and
criminal roles played by their officials, in the snatching and stuffing of
ballot boxes during the December polls.
Tam-George said the state would not succumb to what he called the
“juvenile antics” of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its security
surrogates.
thenation
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