The panel constituted to investigate the electoral and other offences perpetrated during the December 10, 2016 Rivers State legislative re-run elections has alleged that it recovered N111 million from 23 officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The Chairman of the panel and Deputy Commissioner of Police, Damian Okoro, made the allegation while presenting the team’s report to the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, in Abuja on Tuesday.
But the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has dismissed the report.
Okoro alleged that three senior electoral officers collected N20 million each out of the N360 million given to them by Wike, while the remaining officers received N15 million each.
Okoro further alleged that there were some cases of misconduct on the part of some electoral officers, who were compromised in the line of duty.
He said: “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.”
Okoro added that the task given to the panel was challenging because of the tense political and security atmosphere in the state.
The chairman said that lawless elements targeted political opponents of their sponsors, and law enforcement agents, especially the police.
He attributed some of the violent acts to inflammatory statements by some narrow-minded politicians.
“Apart from their utterances, politicians in their desperation for power, also armed thugs who unleashed terror on their opponents,” he said.
He said that six police officers, who were indicted, had been tried and dismissed from the force.
Speaking, Idris said a report and recommendation would be forwarded to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for his advice.
He said appropriate action would be taken against indicted persons to serve as deterrent.
“We are going to take appropriate action in conjunction with other security agencies to put an end to this problem,” he said.
Idris urged Nigerians to have confidence in the security agencies and believe the panel’s report.
Idris alleged that Wike refused to cooperate with the panel even when the team visited him in Port Harcourt.
He said that the investigation would go a long way toward ending electoral malpractices in the country.
“We will be failing in this country if we allow this to continue,” he said.
He said that the money recovered would be paid into government coffers.
It will be recalled that the I-G on December 22, 2016 constituted a 15-man special joint investigation panel to investigate electoral and other offences in respect of the December 10, 2016 re-run elections in Rivers State.
The membership comprised 12 police officers and three officials of the Department of State Services.
The panel was, among other things, mandated to thoroughly investigate the various infractions, incidents and violence that marred the election.
But the Rivers State Government on Tuesday denied that Wike spent N360 million to bribe the Independent National Electoral Commission staff during the December 10 re-run legislative election.
Simeon Nwakaudu, the Special Assistant to the Rivers Governor on Electronic Media, said the allegation was false and politically motivated.
Nwakaudu said in a statement in Port Harcourt that the police allegation was aimed at diverting attention from the real issues about the election.
Nwakaudu said: “The statement (by the police) is patently false, politically motivated and cooked by the police to justify the violence they visited in the people of Rivers state during the re-run.”
According to him, Governor Wike did not spend N360 million to rig the re-run election.
He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike did not spend N360 million to rig the re-run legislative elections of December 10, 2016.
“The people of Rivers State overwhelmingly voted the PDP across the state because of the outstanding performance of Governor Wike since May 29, 2015.”
The Eagle Online
