The Nigerian Senate has directed Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to investigate Sunday’s tragic rally in Rivers State at which Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Magnus Abe, was allegedly shot with rubber bullets by the police. Senator Abe is now in Britain for medical attention.

The Senate in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by its spokesman, Enyinaya Abaribe, strongly condemned “the escalating political violence in Rivers State.”

“The Senate urges the inspector-general of police to investigate the latest incident and ensure that it never recurs. In the same vein, the Senate advises politicians and their supporters to exercise greater restraint and avoid acts that will not only overheat the system but also harm the country’s democracy,” Abaribe said in the statement.

Similarly, the House of Representatives yesterday joined in condemning the Rivers State Police Command over the alleged violent disruption of the rally organised in Obio-Akpor by an APC affiliated organisation, the Save Rivers Movement.

Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Honourable Zakari Mohammed, said that the incident “boils down to the nature of training security operatives go through in recent times,” noting that “it is very sad. We call on the Federal Government to unveil the perpetrators of these dastardly acts.”

Mohammed advocated the creation of state police as the only way to check insecurity in the country. According to him, “with the event of the recent past and because of the security challenges at present, state police will not be out of place.”

Mohammed said with the present setting in the Nigeria Police, “if something is happening in my village, you would need a divisional police officer (DPO) or commissioner of police (CP) to take order from Abuja. By then, people would have lost their lives along the line.

“We need to have a localised police like (in) the developing countries, where they have sheriffs. Nigeria is so vast in terms of geographical location for a federal police to handle.”

•Photo shows Senate Spokesman Enyinnaya Abaribe.