Tag: Alex Akhigbe

•‘We intervened to avert bloodshed’

There was confusion in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State yesterday after armed policemen stormed Opolo area to stop a rally organised to drum support for President Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection in 2015.

It was gathered that a group under the aegis of the New Dawn Initiative Development (NDID) put the rally together to mobilise support for Jonathan in his home state.

But the police in a swift reaction quickly gave reasons for their action.

The commissioner of Police, Hilary Opara, in a statement signed by the police public relations officer (PRO), Mr. Alex Akhigbe, said intelligence uncovered a plot by a splinter group to disrupt the rally.

He said a faction of the pro-Jonathan group had perfected a plot to cause violence during the rally, which he said could lead to the breach of the peace.

Opara said the police advised the pro-Jonathan group to reschedule the rally for another day.

He explained: “The police have directed the group known as New Dawn Initiative Development to reschedule the rally billed to take place at Opolo Secondary School, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

“This was premised on the available intelligence to the command that a splinter group had perfected plans to attack and disrupt the rally which could lead to breach of the peace.

“Finally, the police command hereby advises good people of Bayelsa and in particular political groups to always make efforts to settle their internal differences before requesting for police permit for rallies”.

But tempers were high as many members of the pro-Jonathan group claimed that the action bore the stamp of the government.

They insisted that the action came against the backdrop of insinuations that the senior special assistant to the president on Domestic Matters, Dr. Waripamowei Dudafagh, was behind the group.

There have been speculations that Dudafagh, who is a close friend of Dame Patience, the wife of President Jonathan, is positioning himself to unseat Dickson in 2016.

He was said to have floated the new political group to drive the process of making him a governor in 2016.

Some members of the group believe that the police acted based on rumours that the rally was to endorse the governorship ambition of Dudafagh.

However, close aides to the state governor, Seriake Dickson, said the present administration has been an avid supporter of the president and would not do anything to jeopardise his reelection.

They said that Dickson has been rallying support for the president and wondered why some mischief-makers were trying to pit him against Jonathan.

According to them, Dickson could not have given an order to stop the rally since he travelled overseas for an official assignment.

It was learnt that the group had secured a permit from the state police command to hold the rally.

Following the permit, members of the group from the eight local government areas were said to have started arriving at the rally ground at 8.30am.

Banners bearing pictures of President Jonathan and the Vice-President Nnamadi Sambo, were mounted within and outside the venue.

But trouble was said to have started at about 9am when a detachment of armed policemen and an armoured personnel carrier (APC) stormed the area and asked members of the group to vacate the venue.

A member of the group from the Ekeremor Local Government Area, Preye Ebiade, described the action of police provocative.

He insisted that the rally was designed to ask the President Jonathan to heed the yearnings of kinsmen and declare for 2015 reelection.

He said: “The New Dawn had, while sending out invitations to political leaders and elders on the rally, extended invitation to the State Governor, Hon. Seriake Dickson. He acknowledged the invitation and promised to attend.

“This action is politically motivated. The Jonathan’s re-election should be a collective project and one person should not abort that dream on his own selfish altar for second term in Bayelsa.”