Benin monarch reacts
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja and Adibe Emenyonu
in Benin City
The All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Edo
State House of Assembly members took turns to
recount their ordeal at plenary after armed thugs
attacked their official residential quarters in
Benin City, capital of Edo State, last Saturday.
This came on the heels of calls by member,
representing Uhunmwode constituency, Elizabeth
Ativie, who urged the state Police Commissioner
be transferred from the state.
While her Owan East counterpart, Folly
Ogedegbe, narrated how his 85-year-old mother
was tormented by the sporadic gunfire of the
attackers.
Ativie, who is the only female lawmaker in the
24-member assembly, recalled how she narrowly
escaped being hit by the hoodlums bullet.
However, the lawmakers in a resolution on
matters under urgent public importance, moved
by Ogedegbe, called on the federal government
to prosecute those they described as the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) hoodlums who invaded
the quarters with the sole aim to kill.
Besides, the legislators berated operatives of the
state Police Command for not being proactive;
having been informed of the planned attack a
day before; and urged that the operatives’ role in
the attack be investigated.
Speaker of the assembly, Uyi Igbe, afterwards
directed that clean copies of the resolution be
sent to Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the acting
Inspector General of Police and the National
Security Adviser (NSA).
Also to be served the resolutions are: the Benin
monarch, the state Commissioner of police and
State Security Service (SSS).
Meanwhile, the national secretatriat of the APC
has condemned the attack on the state
legislative quarters, saying the attack is the
height of impunity.
In a statement issued yesterday by its National
Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the
party said based on the ease with which the
thugs invaded a facility that should be well
secured and the ample time they had to damage
over 30 cars and inflict injuries on legislators and
their families, there was every reason to believe
that it must have been sponsored.
‘’Governor Adams Oshiomhole said the
government got intelligence report on the attack
and informed the state Police Commissioner.
Instead of sending in reinforcement to prevent
the attack, the few policemen attached to the
quarters were withdrawn before the attack.
“This is another indication of a police force that
is being bankrolled by all taxpayers becoming
shamelessly partisan and engaging in selective
implementation of its constitutional role of
protecting the lives and property of the
citizenry,’’ it said.
APC said however, that the atmosphere for the
attack was created by a president whose body
language encourages impunity, a president who
has converted the police and the army to his
party’s militia, a president who presides over a
government that is incapable of maintaining law
and order, not to talk of protecting the citizens.
‘’The Inspector-General of Police (IG) takes orders
only from the president. Therefore, where the
president decides to turn the police to his
personal militia for use in vindictive and vendetta
attacks, the IG is not only required to comply, he
is also expected to pass the same orders down
the hierarchy. This is what is happening across
the country.
‘’The danger, however, is that when a society
descends into anarchy, the same police will not
escape the consequences, and will also not be
able to handle the outcome of its collusion as
professionalism would have deserted it and
discipline compromised. By becoming partisan,
the police force is destroying itself,’’ it said.
APC said the attack on the Edo legislative
quarters would have been prevented if the PDP
thugs who molested Oshiomhole and top
officials of his administration, when they went to
the airport to receive President Jonathan a few
days earlier, had been censured for their
unacceptable and barbaric actions.
‘’By failing to sanction them accordingly, the
powers that be have simply given a seal of
approval to their actions and empowered them
to do more, hence they became emboldened to
attack the legislative quarters,’’ the party said.
APC reminded President Jonathan that attacks
like the one in Edo, which the conniving police
apparently allowed to happen, form part of the
reasons some foreign governments, concerned
about the way the Nigerian security agencies
have used the weapons supplied to them to
violate the human rights of citizens, have
refused to sell arms to Nigeria.
‘’Which human rights violation could be more
egregious than the police-sanctioned attacks on
defenceless citizens in Edo State on Saturday?’’
the party queried, and called on the international
community to pay a very close attention to the
impunity in Nigeria, especially ahead of next
year’s general election.
‘’It can only be imagined what role the police and
other security agencies that have been heavily
compromised will play during the elections. It is
therefore imperative for the international
observers who will be coming for the elections to
take this into consideration in their report on the
processes before, during and after the elections,’’
it said.
APC however warned that those who are
engaging in impunity today, just because they
are in power, should realise that they will not be
in power forever, and that one day they will
account for their deeds.
However, the Benin monarch, Omo N’ Oba N’
Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo, yesterday expressed
concern over political thuggery and violent crimes
across the country by supporters of various
political parties.
The royal father in a press statement through
the traditional Prime Minister of the Kingdom,
Chief Sam Igbe, reminded politicians that “only
the living can play politics and not the dead.”
Calling on politician to refrain from politics of
bitterness, the Oba however, directed the Enigie,
Chiefs, Igiohen and Edionwere in Benin Kingdom
to pray for peace, adding, “political leaders are
supposed to show good examples for the
younger generation to emulate, rather than
recruit them as thugs.”
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