Akwa Ibom Boils: Police Shoot and Arrest Udoedehe’s Supporters
In Uyo
The resentment against the high-handedness and repression of the political associates and friends of Senator John James Akpanudoedehe by Governor Godswill Akpabio came to a head this Tuesday in Uyo when persons in their thousands protesting the Senator’s detention, were brutally molested, arrested and detained by the police.
According to our Reporter who was on ground to cover the peaceful protest which commenced from the campaign secretariat of the senator who is challenging the incumbent governor in the 2011 governorship elections, snaked through major streets of the city, with people abandoning their normal everyday chores to join the protest.
The police from “A” Division led by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) whose name could not be immediately ascertained, led policemen into dispersing the peaceful protest of the angry civilians with violence, beating, molesting, arresting and shooting the protesters.
The police is reported to have gone into the campaign secretariat of Senator Akpanudoedehe to arrest persons found in and around the building and in the street, including staff of the secretariat who reported for duty.
Police source say that the police is statutorily empowered to protect lives and property, and cannot allow peace in the state to be disrupted by any set of persons.
When asked to confirm if the protest was violent that warranted disruption, a senior police officer who sought for anonymity explained that, “the protests might be hijacked by hoodlums. This is why the police stepped in to ensure that nothing nasty happens to security.”
Another police source from “A” Division threatened that if the journalist does not leave the scene of the incident, he will “descend” on him.
Meanwhile, over fifty persons are reported arrested by the police, while several others sustained injuries of various kinds.
There is tension in the state right now, and some pundits believe that the series of arrests, killings, kidnaps, and molestation of supporters of Senator Akpanudoedehe in particular, and the killings and marginalization of the Ibibios and non-Annangs by the police and persons said to be loyal to Governor Akpabio, might lead to reprisals of serious ethnic proportions.
There appears to be a conflict in the investigations of the State Security Service (SSS) whose operatives, according to impeccable sources, refused to be compromised on this matter, and the police has vowed to ensure that the real truth is reflected in their report, despite insinuations that over N500 million might have been paid to the police to produce an “indicting” report against the governorship aspirant.Information has it that even the police high command in Abuja appears confused and polarised over the matter, and there are suggestions that a special investigation of the police might be ordered, to confirm concerns of culpability of some very senior officers.

The campaign office of the governorship aspirant has been shut down on the orders of Governor Akpabio through Mr. Rugbere, the Akwa Ibom State commsiioner of police, and somebody who spoke with our Reporter along Udo Otung Uboh Street where the Positive Change campaign headquarters is, stated that this was part of the original intention of the plot.