A pro-democracy civil society organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has upbraided the acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, for what it called the “dereliction of duty tantamount to criminal negligence” which must not go unpunished for permitting armed thugs of political parties to unleash violence during Saturday, March 23, governorship re-run poll in parts of Kano State.

HURIWA in a statement on Sunday specifically condemned “the fraudulent claims of a peaceful re-run election disgracefully made to the media by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr. Michael Anthony Ogbizi, that contrary to widespread and extensively reported evidential proofs showing widespread reign of bloody violence meted out to supporters of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by armed thugs recruited by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in many parts of Kano State.”

“This Deputy Inspector General of Police represents every negative indices that the notoriously compromised policing institution is frequently rebuked from all across the civilised world for operating in a format that is antithetical to constitutional democracy and respect for the principle of rule of law. He should cover his face in shame if he has a conscience for denying the obvious,” the rights group said.

According to HURIWA, it has “always known that there was no valid, cogent and verifiable reasons for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to have selectively declared inconclusive, governorship polls that the opposition PDP were at the verge of emerging victorious even when the same electoral umpire was the first to have always declared the results of elections in places like Kwara and Ekiti states just to spite and intimidate the likes of Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and erstwhile Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Peter Fayose, both of whom are some of the most trenchant critics of President Muhammadu Buhari’s style of leadership.”

The rights group wondered how the hierarchy of the Nigerian Police deliberately allowed armed thugs of the APC made up mostly of notorious drug addicts to wage internecine war against the members, officials and supporters of the opposition PDP to an extent that even journalists were not spared.

“To now watch the DIG tell some wicked lies denying the correct reports of violence in Kano state during the re-run election is therefore very insulting and is nothing short of an unambiguous evidence that the police officials from the top are criminal collaborators with some criminal elements in Kano to undermine and thwart the democratic will of the good people of Kano State.

“Both INEC and the Police are hereby condemned for these atrocious criminal plots to destroy democracy in Kano State particularly and Nigeria through the cocktails of cooked up figures been bandied as outcomes of the badly managed polls,” HURIWA said.

The rights group made reference to media reports detailing thousands of weapon-carrying hoodlums, majority of whom were wearing the APC agent’s tags who took over the show in Gama ward of Nasarawa Local Government Area of Kano State during the governorship re-run election in Kano.

HURIWA recalled that their members on ground claimed that the PDP supporters were forced into hiding as APC took control of everything even as HURIWA learnt from media reporters that when the reporters visited the flashpoints in Kano at around 3:30 p.m., they observed massive exodus of those supporting PDP out of the area and a resident, Ya’u Alhaji, told reporters that the hoodlums that took over the streets were brought in to intimidate residents.

Said HURIWA the statement: “Aside our members who were on ground who raised alarm, even the foreign and local media reported some of those voters interviewed as stating that the armed political thugs are not from their area but that they were only here to cause mayhem.

“Residents of Gama disclosed that they saw a lot of strange faces in the area right from the time of early morning prayer and those ‘strangers’ later took over the streets of Gama brandishing weapons and unleashing terror. It is not possible to identify yourself as PDP member here, not to talk of Agent. You can’t hang any PDP tag here,” a Gama resident stated. It was earlier reported that some journalists were harassed as some of them escaped lynching by the hooligans.”

HURIWA has therefore asked INEC to annul the manipulated and violently obtained results of the Kano re-run election and to proceed to announce the already collated results prior to the so-called re-run poll and declare a winner since the places for the re-run election do not constitute a good enough reason for voiding the previously collated and announced results.

Update news