A Rivers State-based environmental and human rights activist, Ann-Kio Briggs, has said the people of the state will likely resort to self-defence if the police won’t defend them.
The activist said this on Monday on a Channels Television programme: “Politics Today,” following the escalation of violence in the state.
The violence was a fallout of the local government election conducted in the state on Saturday, which has the All Peoples Party pronounced the winner of all chairmanship seats.
“If nobody is not going to defend us, we are very likely going to be left to have to defend ourselves,” Briggs told the host of the show, Seun Okinbaloye.
The rights activist said the police cherry-pick court orders to obey even after the election of 23 local government chairmen in the state.
She flayed the police for withdrawing officers from the local council secretariats despite the warning of Governor Siminalayi Fubara on Sunday evening that some political actors displeased with the outcome of the poll have plans to perpetrate mayhem.
Briggs said: “We’ve been crying out since last October since this political madness started.
“The witch cried in the night and the child died in the morning.
“And we are looking for the cause of the death?
“No.
“We know exactly what is going on.
“We know that the specific local governments that are on fire are the specific local governments that have refused to accept that their tenures have been over three months ago.
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“The specific local governments are the same local governments that their leaders have called the governor all sorts of names since last year.
“We have a police force that for the past three months have had the 23 local government offices of Rivers State under lock and key after the tenure of the local government chairmen had expired.
“And this morning, all of them were ordered to leave the local government areas knowing well that there was going to be trouble, leaving the newly elected local government chairmen in danger.”
Briggs said the people of the state had called on President Bola Tinubu for over a year to intervene but he chose to stay away.
She added: “Now that this has transpired, local governments are on fire, and the President is now calling on the governor of Rivers State, and I don’t know who else that is nameless that the President has refused to name, calling on them to make sure that the state is safe.
“The police are supposed to keep the state.
“This is dangerous and unacceptable to the people of Rivers State.”
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