March 9: PDP Decries Mass Arrest of Members in Niger Delta States
…Says APC is Turning the Region Into a War Zone
Less than 72 hours to the March 9 governorship and states Assembly election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decried alleged on-going mass arrest and detention of its leaders and members in South South states of Rivers, Delta and Akwa-Ibom states by the Nigerian military.
The party accused the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of turning the South South zone into a war zone, out of desperation to suppress voters, manipulate the electoral process and forcefully take over control of the states.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP alleged that leaders of the party in Rivers State are being hounded and forcefully picked up in a well-coordinated operation by military operatives attached to the Director General of Buhari’s Campaign Organization and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
“Our party has received reports on how soldiers led by one Major Mustapha Bello from Sokoto Division, under Amaechi’s directives, manhandled, arrested and took away the Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Tam Gogo Jaja to an unknown destination.
” During the February 23 polls, soldiers, also under the directives of Rotimi Amaechi, invaded the state and engaged in unrestrained harassment of PDP supporters, resulting in the killing of over 30 innocent citizens”, he said
The PDP called the attention of Nigerians and the international community to the development in the South South as well as how the Buhari Presidency and the APC are provoking the people of the region and pushing them to the precipice.
He added that “the tension in the Niger Delta has been dangerously stretched and there is a limit to what the people can stomach in the face of such aggressions without resort to self-help.
“Moreover, the Niger Delta region remains a stronghold of the PDP and no amount of intimation and assault by the APC can change this reality”.
The party therefore demanded the immediate release of every PDP member arrested by the military as well as instant stoppage of military agression in the region ahead of the elections.
It however, warned that any delay in cessation of this aggression by the APC and the military will destroy the precarious peace in the region and spell doom for the nation.
