Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi yesterday accused Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu of fabricating lies to justify his nefarious actions.
The police commissioner declared that he would always abort gatherings without police permit.
Mbu described the 13,000 newly-recruited teachers, who were at the Liberation Stadium on Wednesday to collect their posting letters, but were chased out with teargas by policemen, as “touts and miscreants” hired by Amaechi to protest against President Goodluck Jonathan.
The police commissioner, at a news conference yesterday, claimed that he acted on a security report that the people at the stadium were hired to disrupt the peace in the state.
Mbu alleged that the new teachers employed by the Amaechi administration were specifically recruited to embark on a protest against President Jonathan, insisting that they were 18,000 youths and not 13,000 teachers.
The police chief also displayed some of the mutilated placards he claimed to have recovered from the teachers, with the following inscriptions: “It is time for the North”, “Amaechi for VP”, “North for President” and “Amaechi for Vice-President 2015”.
He said: “The truth is that the government of the state (Rivers) is trying to keep the police perpetually at work by distracting us. Those ‘newly-employed teachers’ were hired youths.
“They were hired to carry placards and protest against the President of the country. I am here to show you the placards. They were called to go there. In all, they did not invite the police. Nobody invited the police.
“My informants called me that they were not called to be given letters, but were given cardboards to protest against President Jonathan. They tore these things (placards) into pieces. We put them together. As a Commissioner of Police, whose ears are on the ground, I will always abort such gatherings.”
Amaechi, who spoke through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, said: “On Wednesday, policemen, on Mbu’s orders, chased out 13,000 newly-recruited teachers, who gathered at the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt, to collect their posting letters.
“The attention of the Rivers State Government has been drawn to allegations of gross impropriety levelled against it by the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Command, Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu, to the effect that 13,000 newly-employed teachers were hired touts and miscreants, engaged to embark on protest in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
“In a media briefing addressed by the Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, he displayed placards allegedly carried by the 13,000 teachers, whom he described as miscreants.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Rivers State Government does not have to bandy words with the state police command, whose stock-in-trade is to fabricate lies at every instance, to justify its nefarious actions.
“Mr Mbu Joseph Mbu and indeed the state police command are known to be pathological liars. The case of Archbishop Ignatius Kattey, the Dean of the Anglican Church, whom they claimed to have secured his release from his abductors, is a ready example (Kattey denied that police rescued him).
“Mr Mbu is a bad taste and we urge Rivers people not to be distracted by his many deafening lies.
“For the records, the 13,000 teachers converged on the Liberation Stadium, Elekahia, Port Harcourt, to collect their letters of posting to their various duty posts. This fact can be verified by any objective mind.”
The Deputy Speaker of the Rivers House of Assembly, Leyii Kwanee, described the prevention and dispersing of teachers as a display of totalitarianism.
According to him, the Rivers PDP led by Felix Obuah has been holding rallies without obtaining permits from the police.
He noted that Obuah’s rallies were against the regulations of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and also capable of breaching the peace, considering the volatile situation in the state.
Kwanee also called on well-meaning Nigerians to rise up and condemn the ugly development, stressing that Rivers state was sliding into anarchy and the nation to precipice, adding: “It is Governor Amaechi today. Who will it be tomorrow?”
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