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2019: NATFORCE petitions IGP over alleged plot to rig elections in South East

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National Taskforce on Prohibition of Illegal Importation of Small Arms, Ammunition and Light Weapons, NATFORCE, has alerted the public over alleged plot by the Police to assist politicians in rigging the forthcoming general elections in some of the states in the South East presently being controlled by the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

This is even as the agency has petitioned the Acting Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mr. Mohammed Adamu over the Police invasion, harassment and arrest of its staff on training in its orientation camp in Aba in Abia State recently on the alleged instruction of state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Chris Ezike.

Director General of NATFORCE, Chief (Dr) Osita E. Okereke, who dropped the hint in a chat with journalists yesterday in Abuja, said the Commissioner’s action was predicated on the assumption that the agency’s presence in the state would prevent him from carrying out his plot to rig the polls in favour of the opposition PDP in the state.

Okereke, in the petition sent to the acting IGP, stated: “The commissioner was reported to have invaded our orientation camp in Aba on 24th January 2019 at about 6.30 am where our members were having their regular training.

“Information reaching us stated that the commissioner invaded the camp with a team of Mobile Police officers, beating our men to stupor, wounding, arresting and unlawfully detaining them since the date of their arrest.

“Mr Ezike didn’t stop there but rather went ahead and wrongly charged them to court, claiming that our men belong to a terrorists group and he also accused us of training our men to rig the general elections in favour of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

“The same commissioner, we learnt was alleged to have been the major cause of the current APC factions in Imo State and is bent on creating the same bad blood in Abia State aimed at giving the People’s Democratic Party an edge over the APC candidates”.

The director general further alleged that Ezike had boasted that once he becomes the Commissioner of Police in Abia State, he would ensure that no APC candidate wins election in the state.

He said the police boss had also accused “our agency of being funded by the APC and as such, he would do everything within his power to ensure that we don’t function in Abia State even as he vowed to replicate what did in Imo State to destabilize APC in Abia State”.

“My investigation has also revealed that Mr. Ezike is a member of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB and his activities since he was deployed to South East geo-political zone has so far manifested this”, Okereke alleged.

He therefore called on the acting IGP to withdraw Ezike from the South East geo-political zone and monitor him closely till after the conduct of the forthcoming elections, saying his activities have become a threat to the success of the polls.

“Mr. Ezike’s partisanship participation in politics has become very dangerous and detrimental to the already existing synergy between the Nigeria Police Force and our organization and his personal interest is now in conflict with the internal security architecture arrangement which has been in existence between the Nigeria Police and the National Taskforce nationwide”, the director general added.

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