Natasha: Nigeria Police Transmutes To APC Lapdog – HURIWA Laments
A pro-democracy Advocacy organization on the aegis of Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has condemned the Nigeria Police Force and the Kogi state governor for what it described as “their reckless abuse of power” by attempting to frustrate the Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from going to her family house and receiving her constituents.
The rights group noted that within 48 hours to the planned homecoming event organised by Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, the Kogi State Government apparently doing the bidding of former governor Yahaya Bello, illegally banned rallies and public gatherings in the state over alleged “security reports”.
HURIWA stressed that the conspiratorial plot between the Police of Kogi state command, the APC governor and his first cousin, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who is a political rival of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan to undermine her planned peaceful assembly in her home, was totally unjustifiable and unacceptable.
HURIWA in a statement by Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator, said it miffed that the Nigeria Police Force which is a creation of the Nigerian Constitution that ought to work to advance the common good, has unfortunately become the official ‘attack dog’ and has further deteriorated to become the official “LAPDOG’ of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
According to HURIWA; “The hierarchy of the Nigeria Police Force must as a matter of fact and as a matter of national importance and urgency, should and must take steps to shake off their parasitic attachment to the party that produced the current president of Nigeria and operate in compliance with the constitutional provisions and the Police Act of 2020 which necessarily mandates the Nigeria Police Force to become a professional, politically unaffiliated and patriotic organisation that serves the interest of all Nigerians and not that of the All Progressives Congress in such a way that they are deployed to embark on a political witch-hunt gambit and practically made to behave like the official vigilantes of All Progressives Congress.
“Why should the Kogi State police command follow sheepishly the political directive of the APC governor by abusing the Police Act of 2020 and using illegal means through totally politically motivated and contrived reasons to attempt to stop Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from exercising her constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to freedom of movement, freedom of peaceful Assembly and freedom of information?
“This is a total deterioration of policing standards that must be confronted and the commissioner of police made to face investigation to provide evidence of security threats that he cited for attempting to carry out the partisan instructions of the All Progressives Congress to muzzle a citizen of Nigeria of her Human Rights,” it said.
HURIWA noted that the so-called security concerns were contrived and dangerously partisan plot of the All Progressives Congress to frustrate the PDP Senator from going ahead with her preplanned rally, stressing that the action of the police and APC was undemocratic.
A statement on Tuesday, the spokesman of the Kogi Police Command, William Aya, said that the call for the cancellation of a rally by Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan became necessary based on intelligence which revealed that some hoodlums plan to hijack the process and cause a disturbance of peace in the State.
While condemning the position of the police and Kogi State government, HURIWA described their position as outrageous, primitive and unconstitutional misuse of mandate as against serving the public good of all citizens.
In the words of HURIWA; “The Kogi state police command has transmuted the Nigeria Police Force into the ‘official LAPDOG’ and the ‘attack dog’ of the All Progressives Congress. This is absolutely despicable and condemnable”.
