Rerun: Wike sets up judicial panel to probe killings
… says don’t politicise national security
The Rivers state governor, Chief Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has constituted a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the killings and other violent acts that occurred during the just concluded December 10 legislative rerun elections in the state.
This was made known in a special government announcement Wednesday, signed by the Secretary to the state government, Hon. Kenneth Kobani.
Governor Nyesom Wike has also flayed what he called the unwholesome practice of playing politics with national security, saying that this portends danger for the country.
Speaking while playing host to the management of Sun Publishingcompany that visited him at the Government House Port Harcourt on Wednesday, the governor decried a situation where criminals were treated differently depending on their political inclinations.
He told his guests that the suspect who beheaded the deputy superintendent of Police (DSP) in One local government area during the Rivers re-run elections was arrested on election day alongside his colleagues and their suspected sponsor, the former Rivers State Commissioner of Power, but an order from above led to their release. He said that it was after the illegal release that the suspects committed the heinous crime.
The constitution of the commission is coming one week after the police headquarters in Abuja set up a panel to investigate an audio recording made public by Sahara Reporters claiming that the voice in it, threatening to kill electoral officers who did not rig the rerun election in favour of the PDP, was Wike’s. It is also to probe the killings, violence, and other election matters that did not conform to the electoral laws of the country.
Governor Wike also rejected the police probe because, according to him, it ran against the law of natural justice for the police to investigate a matter in which the Rivers State government has accused them of perpetrating acts of murder and injustice on Rivers people.
According to the announcement by the Rivers state government, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry has Justice Chinwendu Nwogu as Chairman. The members include: Mrs. Grace Akpughunum-Okwulehie, Prof O.V.C. Okene, Sir Anthony Uzoma Ozurumba, Rev. Canon Hossanna Nnaewi, Alphonso Sibi Esq. (Chief State Counsel as Secretary) and C. B. Ekeh Esq (Principal State Counsel, Legal Counsel).
The announcement read: “In exercise of the powers conferred upon him by Section 2 (1) of the Commissions of Inquiry Law of Rivers State (CAP 30) of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999 and all other powers enabling him in that behalf, the Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, CON, hereby constitutes and appoints a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the killings and other violent acts/matters that occurred during the December 10, 2016 rerun/supplementary elections to elect members of the National Assembly and House of Assembly in Rivers state.”
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry which would be inaugurated on Thursday at the Executive Council Chambers of the Government House, Port Harcourt, would be expected to hold a public hearing at a date to be announced later.
The terms of reference for the commission include to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the violence during the December 10, 2016, rerun/supplementary elections in Rivers State, to identify the perpetrators of the various acts of violence and killings in the aforesaid election, and also to identify the victims of the violence including those killed.
Others include to identify if property was damaged and the value of any such property, to determine if the violence was localised to specific areas within the state or was state-wide, to make appropriate recommendations concerning their findings or any other recommendations as the commission might consider appropriate in the circumstance, and to submit its report to the Governor of Rivers State within one (1) month from the date of its first sitting.
Last Sunday, Governor Nyesom Wike declared that the government and the people of the state would not respond to the probe panel instituted by the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the audio tape allegedly indicting him of threat to lives of electoral officers and electoral malpractice, saying that the probe on the rerun elections by the police has a predetermined goal aimed at indicting PDP members in order to commence “their politically motivated
Wike noted: “When we have descended to this level, you know the implication tomorrow. They are covering things by chasing irrelevant things”, the governor said.
On security in the state, Governor Wike explained that the state has witnessed improvement because of the success of the state amnesty programme.
He noted that the State Government implemented the amnesty programme because it inherited high level insecurity where cultism and kidnapping were the order of the day.
