Rivers Re-run: Wike Bribed Electoral Officers With N360m – Police
The police investigative panel set up by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to investigate electoral and other offenses perpetrated during the December 10 legislative re-run elections in Rivers State said on Tuesday that Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State offered the whopping sum of N360 million to bribe electoral officers. The panel also announced that it recovered the sum of N111 million from no fewer than 23 officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Presenting its report to the IGP at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, Chairman of the panel, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Damian Okoro revealed that, “the sum total of N111.3 million was recovered from 23 electoral officials out of N360m. Three senior INEC officers collected N20 million each, while the remaining officers received N15 million each.
“By this investigation, this panel has diligently unraveled what went wrong with the re-run election in Rivers, the details of which are contained in the report.
“We discovered that failure of leadership and followership, rather than law enforcement, was responsible for the political upheaval in the state,” the panel chairman said.
According to him, undesirable elements were deployed to target political opponents and law enforcement agents, especially the police.
“Apart from their utterances, politicians in their desperation for power, also armed thugs who unleashed terror on their opponents,” he said, pointing out that six police officers, who were indicted, had been tried and dismissed from the force.
Receiving the report, IGP Idris said the report and its recommendations would be forwarded to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for his advice, adding, “We are going to take appropriate action in conjunction with other security agencies to put an end to this problem,’’ he said, urging Nigerians to have confidence in the security agencies and believe the panel report.
“We will be failing in this country if we allow this to continue,’’ he said, disclosing that the recovered money would be paid into government coffers.”
The police boss said Governor Wike did not cooperate with the panel even when the team visited him in Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has described the report as ‘concocted’ and a script written and acted by the All Progressives Congress-led Government in collaboration with the police.
In a statement signed by his media aide, Simeon Nwakaudu, the governor said he never bribed any electoral officers with the sum of N360 million, insisting that the police panel report was completely baseless.