APC lawyers arrested over whistleblower’s false alarm — Police

Forum 1 year ago

APC lawyers arrested over whistleblower’s false alarm — Police

The Rivers State Police Command has said it acted on a tip-off to arrest three lawyers hired by the All Progressives Congress to challenge the outcome of the March 18 governorship election at the tribunal.

The command explained that apart from the three lawyers, it also arrested five APC support staff working with the legal team.

The police said they were picked up on Saturday morning in a hotel in Port Harcourt.

The spokesperson for the command, Grace Iringe-Koko, made the confirmation on Sunday morning in a statement titled, ‘Re-arrest of lawyers handling APC election petition’.

Iringe-Koko said, “On March 31, 2023, at about 11.20am information was received that some lodgers occupying three 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 April 1, 2023 at about 7.02am. In the course of the search,  eight 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 Criminal Investigation Department.

“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 of the arrested persons were lawyers.

“The APC state chairman and the party governorship 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 persons were released to a reliable surety.

While addressing newsmen on the incident, the APC governorship candidate in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, said the arrest of the lawyers was an attempt to intimidate him not to challenge the result of the election at the tribunal.

Cole said, “It has been a very disturbing process and very traumatic for our democracy. It started with the arrest of our lawyers that were preparing for the tribunal.

“And so we had to start putting pressure on the police, the Nigerian Bar Association, the media, everybody got involved because we have never seen a thing like this in Nigeria.

“It took over 36 hours, including sleeping here (police station), refusing to leave before we can just say that some justice has been done.”

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