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Ngige Blames Police, Says Emergency Rule Planned

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
November 10, 2004
Posted to the web November 11, 2004

By Chuks Okocha And Emmanuel Ugwu
Abuja/Enugu
State command denies complicity as Ohanaeze reacts
Anambra State Governor, Dr. Chris Ngige, has accused unnamed persons working in
concert with the police to foment trouble in the state and thus pave way for
the imposition of a state of emergency. He also accused the police of aiding
the hoodlums who unleashed violence in the state yesterday.
In a swift reaction, however, Anambra State Police Command denied any
complicity in the incident even as Ohanaeze Ndigbo described the arson and
destruction as terrorism.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja yesterday, Ngige said the mobile policemen on a
purported order from above held members of the State House of Assembly
including its Speaker, Mike Belonwu, hostage.
"The police were withdrawn from all government buildings in Anambra State. We
have written asking for police to go back to government building. Till today,
it has not been done. All ministries and government offices are without police
protection. Radio and television stations have no police protection. So there
is overwhelming evidence to point to the fact that police has refused to do its
job.
"As for the police, I don't have to go too far to prove that they are involved,
otherwise why did they dismantle the ANVS (Anambra Vigilante Services), which
was the only security outfit in the state?" the governor said.
Giving an account of events preceding the crisis, Ngige said the police swooped
on members of the ANVS, who have been providing complementary security in the
state and arrested all of them, thereby paving the way for the hoodlums to
unleash mayhem on innocent citizens.
He said yesterday's violence and destruction is an indication of a plot to
precipitate the imposition of a state of emergency in the state. "I heard that
they have been assured of the imposition of a state of emergency in the state,"
he added.
Lamenting the breakdown of law and order in the state Ngige said, "My children
have been evacuated from their school to an unknown destination. I am yet to
make contact with my wife. I hope that they will be safe wherever they may be."
He said that he has tried to make contact with President Olusegun Obasanjo, but
was told that he (president) was attending the weekly Federal Executive Council
meeting.
But he expressed optimism that he would see the president after the FEC meeting
and brief him on the security situation in the state.
He disclosed that the thugs that unleashed mayhem in the state were brought in
from Enugu where they had been camped.
Responding to Ngige's allegation, Anambra State Police Commissioner, Felix
Ogbaugu, denied any complicity by the police in the incident.
He said last night at a press briefing at the command's headquarters in Awka
that he got a signal indicating that some hoodlums were planning to attack
government properties in the state.
Although he did not say when he received the signal, he said as a result of the
information a detacthment of mobile policemen were deployed to rescue some
public buildings.
He also said further that members of the state House of Assembly being held
hostage, then were being protected, adding that the attack at the Assembly
quarters was carried out some days after the legislators asked the police to
withdraw from the estate.
In Enugu Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural organisation of Igbo people
yesterday described the mayhem in Anambra state as "a terrible act of
vanddalism and terrorism," Secretary general of Ohanaeze, Col Joe Achuzia
(rtd), told newsmen.
"From Ohanaeze's point of view today we are witnesses to a terrible act of
vandalism and terrorism being visited on Anambra State. This act of terrorism
started almost from day one when the present governor of anambra State assumed
office."
He noted that those behind the crisis and their sponsors had a hidden agenda of
fomenting trouble to give the Federal Government an excuse to militarise
Anambra and declare a state of emergency in the state.
"If that is the motive," he warned, "I want to make it abundantly clear that
Ohanaeze would not stand by and watch terrorism being forced down on Anambra
State."
Achuzia, who said he had gone "as far as I could" to assess the destruction of
Awka, the Anambra State capital, noted that he was "horrified" at what he saw.
He explained that Ohanaeze had refrained from direct intervention in the
Anambra crisis because of its political nature and also due to the fact that
the parties to the feud belonged to the same political party.
But he regretted that efforts to reconcile the belligerents have been
"impossible" and it has continued to fester.
Achuzia pointed out that one would not have been worried so much if the
political warlords have confined the battle to themselves rather than expanding
the battle field to the destruction of public property serving the people of
Anambra State.
He blamed the Federal Government for withdrawal Ngige's police security in a
politically motivated action, and asked how the governor was expected to
exercise his constitutional role as the chief security officer of the state.
Achuzia warned the federal authorities that while they should investigate the
mayhem in Anambra it should not be interpreted as an uprising to warrant the
solution akin to Plateau or Zaki Biam in Benue State.
"Nobody should take this issue as an uprising in Anambra State. It is a storm
in a tea cup. And I therefore ask that the Governor should be allowed to
continue his duty of governance," he added.
He said that Ohanaeze would on Friday hold its Ime Obi meeting to appraise the
Anambra situation "to enable the Igbo nation appraise the situation, visit the
scenes of destruction and take a stand."
"We will ask the Federal Government that we don't want the way of Plateau State
to be the way of Anambra State," he said, adding, "Let's hope that this is not
the beginning of a terrible raining day."
Also, the Igbo Youth Movement (IYM) yesterday condemned "in strong terms" the
destruction of public properties in
Anambra State, saying that the perpetrators were just acting a well-prepared
script aimed at plunging the state chaos.
But it warned against using the situation as an excuse to impose a state of
emergency in the state. National Co-ordinator of IYM, Evangelist Eliot Uko, who
gave the warning while speaking with newsmen in Enugu.
"IYM assures the plotters and dreamers for state of emergency in Anambra State
that instead of them having their way they are stoking the fire of a boiling
cauldron not knowing when the dish would be ready."
Uko said the events in Anambra was a grand agenda designed "to paint Ndigbo as
being ungovernable and too disorganized to aspire to rule Nigeria."
The Igbo youth leader therefore called on Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the political
elite of Igboland to rise up to the challenge and rescue Anambra State from
total eclipse, adding, "an unstable Anambra translates to unstable Igbo land."
However, the National Working Committee of the PDP called on all parties to
exercise restraint and desist from taking the laws into their hands.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Venatius Ikem,
said the PDP is awaiting a full briefing on the causes of the disturbances.
The statement read in part: "The NWC has viewed with concern disturbing reports
emanating from Anambra State and urges parties concerned to exercise restraint
and desist from taking the laws into their hands."
Meanwhile, three members of the House of Representatives, Jerry Ugokwe, Harry
Oranezi Ralph Okeke as well as Dan Ulasi, former Chairman, Anambra State PDP
Caretaker Committee yesterday accused Ngige of using the ANVS to attack party
supporters who were on their way to a rally ahead of the December 18 council
poll in the state.
Ugokwe, who addressed newsmen in Abuja said the governor should be held
responsible for developments in the state, pointing out that, "We have returned
to the pre-Mbadinuju days where the Bakassi Boys (took) laws into their hands
to unleash violence and mayhem on the people."
He said that information available to him suggests that the state government
used the ANVS to attack PDP supporters who were going to Awka for the flag off
of the the campaigns for the December 18 council poll.
Ugokwe accused the state radio and television stations of announcing contrary
information that the campaigns have been cancelled.
Oranezi disclosed that the crisis was sparked off when the ANVS attacked
students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa who were going for the rally. He
said the bus conveying the students was burnt and that almost all the students
in the bus died.
Ulasi, however, confirmed that the Commander of the Mobile Police in the state
held members of the Anambra State House of Assembly in protective custody.
He explained that the Commander of the Mobile Police unit, who lives near the
legislators' quarters, on noticing the riotous situation around the lawmakers'
quarters, restricted the movement of the legislators for their personal safety.
He blamed the crisis in the state on the inability of the governor to accept
the list of the candidates for the council poll, which the national
headquarters of the party released.
And in what appears to be a confirmation of Ngige's alarm of a plot to
instigate the imposition of emergency rule in the state, Ulasi said: "Let the
President call the governor (Ngige) to order as he called (suspended Plateau
State Governor Joshua) Dariye to order when there was crisis in the state. Let
the President evaluate whatever the governor told him on the security situation
in the state and let him act."

   

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