Lagos ACN Decries Clampdown On Party In Akwa Ibom

The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has strongly condemned the arrest of the governorship candidate of the ACN in Akwa Ibom State, Senator John Akpan Udoedehe and the continued persecution and mass arrest of ACN members in Akwa Ibom State.

While coming down hard on the role of the Inspector General of Police, Haffiz Ringim, the party says that the PDP Federal Government and the Akwa Ibom State government should stop instigating violence and employing such as an excuse to clamp down on the opposition in various parts of the country.

In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party states that the violence in Akwa Ibom was instigated by the PDP in an attempt to further their desperate bid to remain in power by all means.

It warns the PDP to play by the rules and not believe it would be allowed to intimidate and overwhelm others by force, while calling for the immediate removal of Ringim as the Inspector General of Police given his complicit role in perpetrating the PDP’s dirty political interests all over the country.

“Nigerians are witnesses to the desperate antics of the PDP in the face of mounting odds against its unproductive stay in power. For now, this desperate tactics is best expressed through dangerous hunting of the opposition in virtually all the state controlled by the PDP, to ensure they don’t campaign and pose a danger to PDP’s penchant to steal election results.

“What particularly irks us is the open and bizarre bias the police and the security agencies are showing on these deadly efforts and the readiness of the police to live up to its traditional notorious role as the enforcer of the dirty wills of the PDP.

“The Akwa Ibom issue as well as many other reported cases of police complicity in promoting the bestial interests of the PDP are so rife that one wonders if the Haffiz Ringim police will not stand on the ways of Nigerians to a free and fair election next month given the curious roles he has elected to play in the period leading to this important election and the election process itself.”

According to Igbokwe, “We are dismayed that Haffiz Ringim and the police have massed at the side of the oppressors, the perpetrators and instigators of the Akwa Ibom crisis and are diligently prosecuting the interests of the PDP against the ACN, which was first attacked and several of its members were killed.

“Hafiz Ringim and his men, in cahoots with the Federal Government and the PDP have taken up the battle of the PDP and employing it as an excuse to arrest, detain, persecute and threaten ACN members in Akwa Ibom State. This is totally unacceptable to us as well as the mischievous attempt to grant the PDP the license to commit crime against its opponents while terming any effort to question their scruples as treasonable.

We wonder how the police could be trusted to serve as impartial security agency during the coming election when it has shown such bizarre partiality that had seen it take up the dark mission of the aggressor

“We are happy that most Nigerians are conversant with the happenings in Akwa Ibom when PDP thugs waylaid and attacked the governorship convoy of the ACN and got ten members of the ACN killed. The smashing of the protest against this killing provoked the Uyo incident where properties were burnt. But to the shock of everybody, the presidency has given Governor Akpabio who is fingered as the instigator of the crisis, the leverage to go and hunt down the governorship candidate, the officials and members of the ACN and the police and other security agencies have been mobilised for this role.

“it is obvious that Governor Akpabio and the PDP have weighed the situation on the ground and have realized that they cannot win the next election or be allowed to steal it as in previous times and therefore resorted to the use of victimisation, killing, intimidation and other known brute tactics of the PDP to take out the ACN candidate, Akpanudoedehe.

“We warn that the PDP should cease thinking it can be allowed to force its way to power again and we warn the police to realise it is a security organ for all Nigerians, funded by tax payer’s money and not the enforcement wing of the PDP.”

“We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Udoudehe and other members of the ACN who are being unjustly held in Akwa Ibom State by the PDP government and the police and the arrest of the criminal masterminds In Akwa Ibom PDP who planned, provoked and executed the present crisis as a way of stopping the ACN push for the state.”