Rivers: HURIWA blames DSS, Police inaction for attack on LG secretariats

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has condemned the Rivers State Police Command and the Department of State Services, DSS, accusing them of colossal failures, inaction and passive compromise of intelligence.

HURIWA said it was their inaction that paved the way for the coordinated arson attacks by economic and political terrorists in some local councils in the Ikwerre axis.

HURIWA, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said both security agencies did nothing to prevent the massive invasion of local councils by armed political terrorists.

Newspot reports that suspected political thugs had set ablaze a newly built section of the council secretariat, located at Isiokpo in the Ikwerre Local Government area after Saturday’s local government elections.

“Police authorities have not commented on the incident, and the extent of damage is still unclear,” HURIWA stated.

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Newspot also reported that Inspector General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, had directed the Rivers State Commissioner of Police to unseal the local government secretariats and withdraw personnel stationed at the councils across the state.

“The blame for any turmoil in Rivers should be on the security forces that by law are mandated to secure lives and property of the citizenry including public buildings,” HURIWA said.

The rights group charged Egbetokun “to ensure that political terrorists are not continuously unleashed on Rivers State”.

It further “demanded that the Department of State Services must fish out those economic and political terrorists responsible for the reported coordinated attacks of public buildings belonging to local councils and the good people of Rivers State”.

“[We are] therefore calling on politicians to give peace a chance and follow the law. The institutions of law enforcement must never be seen to take political position or treat any politicians no matter how influential or powerful as being above the law or else anarchy would be let loose in Nigeria.

“It stayed that those who set local council edifice on fire are to be treated as political terrorists who aren’t different from Boko Haram terrorists,” HURIWA added.