Tina Amanda
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State in the just concluded elections, Tonye Cole has confirmed recovery and receipt of all the electoral documents, laptops, and printing machines earlier ceased by personnel of the Nigerian Police in the state.
Recall that detectives attached to the Surveillance Centre Unit of Rivers State Police command had invaded a hotel in Port Harcourt, arrested lawyers preparing process documents, and carted away documents to be used for tribunal cases for APC candidates who lost in the elections.
However, the police after granting bail to the lawyers and other staff of the chamber, refused to release the documents, insisting that INEC must visit to verify the authentication of the documents.
Speaking to newsmen after recovering the documents and other materials, Cole who narrated the level of stress and difficulties encountered, said the action of the Police is not good for the nation’s democracy.
He said: “Well, it has been a disturbing process, traumatic for a democratic process. It started with the arrest of our lawyers that were preparing for the tribunal. All evidence, their drafts, and written documents were seized and that is too dangerous.
“Leaving those things in the hands of unknown persons was too dangerous because that carries the base of our case. We had to put pressure on the Police, NBA got involved, and everybody got involved; it was unprecedented, we have never seen a thing like this in Nigeria.
“It took over thirty-six hours including sleeping here and refusing to leave before we could see some level of justice done. They claimed that somebody was printing fake INEC documents, how do you print fake INEC documents in a hotel, I do not know.
“They claimed there are issues of hacking, I do not know how you can hack information, but at the end of the day, I think it was very flimsy. What they said was they had a tip and without investigation went in and arrested lawyers, the blow-up in their faces was totally unnecessary.
“Yesterday, we got all lawyers released, they were released on self-recognition. The support staff that was working with them were released on bail and the Party Chairman stood in for them, what we had to make sure was necessary to release was all the evidence, the EC8, EC8A, and EC8B.
“Most people know what that is, those are the agent copies, of the evidence that we had an election, if you take those things and it disappeared it means APC was not in the field at all.
“Did INEC send someone to verify, yes they sent an ICT person to confirm whether the EC8A, EC8B, were authentic agent copies. I remember speaking with the Resident Electoral Commissioner this morning, asking him should an ICT person be the one to come verify the documents and why they did not send someone from the legal department to come.
“He assured me that the ICT person had the authorization to verify the documents. We accepted it knowing it was an INEC REC that is sending someone to come, the ICT person confirmed it was the authentic agent copies, no forgeries.
“We are very vociferous in saying that INEC will be a defendant and can not look at the legal draft or what we are working on by looking into our computer and files because they will be a defendant. They are not supposed to see our argument that will be presented in court, it is too bad.
“And again, it is another calculated attempt to stop us from going to the tribunal. Enough is enough, I want this to be on record, the people who arrested us are a group called Wike Police and Wike Police station and this must stop. We cannot have two separate Police groups.
“The first group are the ones that went and they are the ones used for hijacking elections, they are the same ones used in arresting all our people, they are the same group that went to arrest candidates. This must stop.
“They are the group that went to arrest our lawyers, if we had not started making noise about it at that particular point, they would have carried all the documents there. The moment we started shouting, they transferred it to State CID from the surveillance and intelligence group.
“I have to thank the press because they acted immediately so as the NBA who took it up. All our documents would have remained with the surveillance and intelligence group and from there disappear. This was targeted by what is called Governor Wike Police station and I do not know how we would have two Police groups in Rivers State.”
Speaking further, Cole accused Rivers State Police command of creating a unit, called Wike Police, which he claimed is being used to harass and intimidate opposition parties in the state.
“We know we won the election in River’s State, we know it was hijacked, what we want is to go to go to court and have our day, so allow us to do just that, that is what we want”.
The APC governorship candidate said Rivers people must rise up to condemn and end such activities for the freedom of the state.
 in Rivers State in the just concluded elections, Tonye Cole has confirmed recovery and receipt of all the electoral documents, laptops, and printing machines earlier ceased by personnel of the Nigerian Police in the state.){kind=link}