Tension was still high at the Rivers State judiciary on
Wednesday after the forceful entry into the state’s High Court Complex
in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.
On Tuesday team
of armed
policemen drawn from the Rivers State Police Command numbering
over 40 teargassed people, including journalists, as they escorted
Justice Daisy Wotube Okocha into the complex that has been shut due to
judiciary workers’ strike since 12 June this year.
Journalists
and people who noticed the heavy presence of armed policemen, patrol
vans and anti-bomb vehicles at the entrance and exit gates, tried to
gain entry and find out what was amiss but were rebuffed.
Policemen
started firing teragas cannisters after the State Commissioner of
Police, Dan Bature, arrived and frowned at the presence of people
milling outside the gates of the High Court complex.
It
was later learnt that Justice Okocha had written to all High Court
judges inviting them to a meeting at High Court One inside the State
High Court Complex, and also wrote to the State Police Commissioner to
beef up security around her, her residence and High Court complex to
avert any breach of the peace in the judiciary.
On
getting wind of the scheduled meeting at the complex, the State
Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Worgu Boms, wrote to
the Police Commissioner informing him about the implication of allowing
the police to provide cover for anyone to break into the High Court
complex.
Boms informed Bature, who is barely three
weeks old in the state, through a memo dated 22 September, 2014, also
made available to journalists about the crisis rocking the judiciary
before his assumption of office in the state.
He posited that “Hon. Justice D.W.Okocha was not
recommended by the state Judiciary Service Commission, JSC, for
appointment as Chief Judge; her recommendation by National Judicial
Council, NJC, to the Governor for appointment, was voided by the Federal
High Court in a case between the Governor and two others versus
National Judicial Council and she is neither the state Chief Judge nor
its Acting Chief Judge”.
Based on the aforementioned, and others Boms dismissed
her letter to the CP wherein she said that she had been directed by the
NJC to assign cases and assume related administrative duties because by
an amendment of the Rivers State High Court Law, only the Chief
Registrar can assign cases. And allowing her to forcefully head the
state judiciary with the aid of policemen would likely cause a breach of
the peace in the state.
In her reaction to Tuesday’s
clash at the complex, Mrs Ibim Semenitari, Commissioner for Information
and Communications, raised alarm that the state Police Command under
Bature could allow itself to be led by the nose and commit unlawful act
of breaking and entry into a complex securely locked because of
judiciary workers’ strike.
She said the Rivers
Government is calling on the Acting Inspector General of Police to call
CP Bature to order and ask him to remain “apolitical, non-partisan and
do the job of securing lives and properties, which is the constitutional
responsibility of the Police before the state is plunged into another
round of crisis”.
She cautioned that the state
government is aware that some CPs posted to the state erroneously
believe that the easiest way to getting promotion to the Assistant
Inspector General AIG, is to antagonize Governor Chibuike Amaechi, bully
Rivers people to satisfy federal might unlawfully.
She
said that the action of Tuesday was to ignite crisis in the state by
those who are desperate for power ahead of 2015 without allowing Rivers
people exercise their rights. It is not yet clear what would be the
outcome of the meeting between Justice Daisy Okocha and the judges who
honoured her invitation.
It is also not clear if
Justice Peter Agumagu, the President of the Customary Court of Appeal
and the most senior judge of the state judiciary, who the state
government approved as the recognised Chief Judge of Rivers State, would
equally be escorted by the police whenever he decides to resume as the
Chief Judge of the state.
Source:PM News
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