A pro-democracy group, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) has alleged that the Nigeria Police was biased against the sexual harassment allegation of Kogi Central Senator, Natasha Akpoti on Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
In a statement made available to the media on Tuesday and signed by National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group said the police was acting as if it’s an appendage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in a bid to frustrate the Kogi Senator from achieving justice.
“HURIWA is miffed that the Nigeria Police Force which is a creation of the Nigerian Constitution that ought to work to advance the common good, has unfortunately become the official ‘attack dog’ and has further deteriorated to become the official “LAPDOG’ of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“The hierarchy of the Nigeria Police Force must as a matter of fact and as a matter of national importance and urgency, should and must take steps to shake off their parasitic attachment to the party that produced the current president of Nigeria and operate in compliance with the constitutional provisions and the Police Act of 2020 which necessarily mandates the Nigeria Police Force to become a professional, politically unaffiliated and patriotic organisation that serves the interest of all Nigerians and not that of the All Progressives Congress in such a way that they are deployed to embark on a political witch-hunt gambit and practically made to behave like the official vigilantes of All Progressives Congress.
“Why should the Kogi State police command follow sheepishly the political directive of the APC governor by abusing the police Act of 2020 and using illegal means through totally politically motivated and contrived reasons to attempt to stop Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from exercising her constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to freedom of movement, freedom of peaceful Assembly and freedom of information?
“This is a total deterioration of policing standards that must be confronted and the commissioner of police made to face investigation to provide evidence of security threats that he cited for attempting to carry out the partisan instructions of the All Progressives Congress to muzzle a citizen of Nigeria of her Human Rights? HURIWA believed that the so-called security concerns are the contrived and dangerously partisan plot of the All Progressives Congress to frustrate the PDP Senator from going ahead with her preplanned rally. This is undemocratic,” the statement read.
HURIWA recalled that within 48 hours to the planned homecoming event organised by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the Kogi State Government apparently doing the bidding of former governor Yahaya Bello a rabid political opponent of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, illegally banned rallies and public gatherings in the state over ‘security reports’.
The government disguised the intention of the phantom ban on rallies by asserting that it has also stopped fishing and other activities, lamenting that fishing activities resulted in the loss of two lives in Kasemiya, Katubo and Umozu Ette, all in Kogi Local Government Area in Kogi West.
In a statement on Monday, the Commissioner for Information, Kingsley Fanwo, said the move was to prevent any form of security breach that might destabilise the state.
The Kogi state Police command mimicking the All Progressives Congress’s Kogi State governor also illegally asked organisers of a homecoming rally for Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan to cancel it.
In a statement on Tuesday, the spokesman of the Kogi Police Command, William Aya, hinged the warning on an “intelligence report”.
“The call for cancellation becomes necessary, noting that intelligence reveals that some hoodlums plan to hijack the process and cause a disturbance of peace in the State. The Command cannot afford to jeopardize the existing peace the State is currently enjoying,” the statement read.
The RADARR reports that the Kogi State Police Command had banned political rallies and restricted the use of security convoys within the State.
