Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Four days to the governorship election of Saturday, March 18, 2023, Governor Nyesom Wike’s round-the-clock moves to woo more supporters for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their candidates has suffered a big blow due to the activities of the state task force.
Since after the presidential election and pronouncement of Bola Tinubu as president-elect, Governor Wike has been reaching out to various groups who were not happy with the outcome of the polls to pacify them and solicit for their votes in the forthcoming governorship election.
Some of the groups the governor has met are those of the Igbo extraction, such as the Technical Dealers Association of Nigeria, Computer Dealers Association, Garrison Phone Dealers Association, Building Materials Traders Association among others.
But these moves might suffer hitches because of the task force which has reportedly been unleashing terror on petty traders, bus and taxi drivers in various parts of Port Harcourt since it was set up.
Traders and commercial drivers have severally accused the task force of extreme high-handedness, tyranny, aggression, inconsideration, wickedness and bigotry.
As if to confirm their victims’ accusations, the task force’s high-handedness and aggressiveness resulted in the untimely death of a taxi driver, Simon Iroegbunam, on Monday morning, after a beating by one of their officials on Sunday.
Ihegbulam had stopped at Rumuokoro round-about to pick a friend whom he wanted to give a lift when the task force officials pounced on him, carried his car battery and forced him to go to their office with them.
Emeka Ibe, a brother to the late driver, summarised what happened. He narrated:
“It’s just a friend that he wanted to enter front here. They caught his motor, so he came down to ask them why. They carried his battery, he followed them to their office, that ended his life. They started beating him. To revive him, my brother is already weak.
“I say ‘what happened?’ They say he fell down. From this hospital at former Amazing Graze there, they now referred me to UPTH. We took him to UPTH; around 3 a.m. he died.
“It happened that one of the boys that followed me to carry him to that hospital was the person that pushed him that he hit his head on the pavement.”
The ugly incident sparked a protest by angry commercial vehicle drivers who blocked the Rumuokoro round-about on Monday morning, causing a traffic gridlock for hours.
They demanded for justice for their murdered colleague and also called for the immediate scrapping of the task force.
Condemning the action of the murderous task force official, one of the protesting drivers lamented: “We all the drivers, we’re angry. None of them (task force officials) is in their office and nobody’s saying anything. That’s the reason why we blocked the Rumuokoro round-about.
“The good man was a very gentle man; he didn’t do anything. This is the normal round-about that we do load. You now hijacked him, you beat him and you flogged him in the floor, which the man has to hit his head on the pavement.
“The task force are not doing well, no matter how they’re working. We’re waiting for justice to be done. We’ve gone to the police station; we’ve made a report there.”
Neither the Rivers State government nor the task force command has reacted to the incident.
Many believe that the killing of the taxi driver by the Rivers task force at a time Governor Nyesom Wike is doing everything possible to woo more electoral support from non indigenes in the state, especially the Igbos who are believed to have bloc votes, ahead of the March 18 gubernatorial election, could act as a cog in the wheel of whatever progress the governor has made so far.
Recall that the Rivers strong man had, during his meeting with the Computer Dealers Association at the weekend, announced a donation of 150 plots of land to the association.
