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Amaechi Okonkwo, Port Harcourt
The Rivers Police Command, Sunday morning made public reasons for the continued detention of laptops and other election materials.
The command said the materials, to be evidence being assembled by the legal team of the Rivers All Progressive Congress eight of whom were arrested Saturday morning and released in the night of the same day.
The spokesperson of the command, SP Grace Iringe-Koko in a statement Sunday morning claimed that the police was still trying to confirm the authenticity of some of the documents found with the arrested lawyers.
According to her, because the police investigating team lacked the technical competence to establish the veracity of the suspected printed fake INEC documents, the State REC was requested to send the Commission’s ICT personnel to inspect and identify the documents.
“The Police Command wishes to assure that once that is done, the most appropriate and professional thing will be done”, she assured.
Iringe-Koko explained the reason for the arrest of the lawyers thus; “On 31/3/23 at about 11:20 am information was received that some lodgers occupying three (3) rooms in a popular hotel, were seen carrying packages in and out of the rooms, and printing what seems like INEC documents (including results).
“A video recording of the activities in one of the rooms was forwarded by the informant to the Police Commissioner. The information neither disclosed the identity of the lodgers nor who they were working for.
“As a responsible law enforcement agency, the Police needed to act on the intelligence. Thus, on the basis of the report, the Police approached the court to obtain a search warrant. The warrant was dutifully executed on 1/4/23 at about 7:02 am.
“In the course of the search, eight (8) persons were arrested, and several documents, laptops and printers recovered. The arrested persons and exhibits were taken to the Surveillance Centre and later transferred to the State CID. An Assistant Commissioner of Police was tasked to lead the investigation team. It was in the process of profiling them that it was revealed that three (3) of the arrested persons were lawyers.
“The APC State Chairman and the party Gubernatorial candidate in the last election showed up at the station to inform the Police that the lawyers were actually hired by the party to prepare their papers for filling at the election tribunal.
Subsequently, the NBA President and General Secretary called the Commissioner of Police, who assured them that the lawyers would be released when they had finished making their statements. Accordingly, the lawyers were promptly released on self recognizance, while the other five (5) persons were released to a reliable surety.
“Meanwhile, since the investigating team lacked the technical competence to establish the veracity of the suspected printed fake INEC documents, the State REC was requested to send the Commission’s ICT personnel to inspect and identify the documents. The Police Command wishes to assure that once that is done, the most appropriate and professional thing will be done”.
But the APC in a switch reaction to the statement by the police faulted the police in its execution of the arrest warrant saying that the security agency has failed to show the party the video evidence the police claimed to be acting on.
Darlington Nwauju, Rivers APC Spokesman said in a terse statement; “First, uptil now nobody has shown us the video evidence that the so-called whistle blower submitted to the Police, therefore we are battling with an unknown complainant.
“Those arrested were not asked to properly identify themselves and explain what activity(ies) they were undertaking, because lawyers can work from the air, land or sea including hotel rooms.
“Election petitions are time bound and we are aware that the Police has a legal department. Now, interrogating the evidences we intend filing completely rubbish what we intend to present before the court.
“You want to ask the same INEC who have refused to obey a subsisting court order to furnish us with relevant documents for our petitions, to still come and “inspect” documents we got from the field”
He accused the Police in Rivers State of attempting to do the job of the Tribunal already by taking over the job of the EPT saying; “all the drama playing out still points to the fact that we have accused the Police and INEC of doing all in their powers to help the PDP literally carry the ball into the goalpost and scoring even without dribbling anybody’.
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