ACTIVISTS LAUD POLICE, MILITARY OPERATIONS IN RIVERS
Port Harcourt
WORRIED by the level of insecurity in Rivers State, the Niger Delta Civil Society Coalition has hailed the police and the military for the ongoing raid of suspected cultists and kidnappers’ hideouts in the state.
The coalition of activists said that the operations of the police and the military would help to reassure the people of the state that their lives and property were safe.
The Chairman of the NDCSC, Mr. Anyakwee Nsirimovu, told newsmen in Port Harcourt on Wednesday that the operations of the military and police were not illegal, adding that they (police and soldiers) acted within the confines of the law.
Nsirimovu lamented the increasing level of kidnapping, rape, armed robbery and intimidation of innocent people of the state by armed youths, adding that the human rights community was “fully” in support of the action of security operatives in the state.
“The human rights community supports fully and unequivocally what the authorities are doing. You cannot have two coercive forces in a sovereign environment. The only force that is authorized to carry arms in any nation is the police and the military.
“There is nothing in our Constitution that says to qualify for citizenship, you have to be a militant; it is an aberration and that cannot be tolerated. So, what the authorities in Rivers State are doing is within the ambits of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; they are within the law.
“What they are simply doing is to ensure security for the citizens and residents of Rivers State. I think the realisation by the police authority and all the security forces in Rivers State that time is up for these criminals to be removed is a welcomed development.
“Rivers State is unsecured at the moment. Typical instance is that night life is almost crippled in the state; by 9:00pm in Port Harcourt, you can’t get any chemist open.
“Along Hospital Road for instance, you have chemists that used to be open 24 hours, but now, 9:00pm, you can’t get that. Supermarkets are shut sometimes by 8:00pm; Stadium Road is a typical example,” he observed.
Expressing the need for the people of the state to support the police and military operations in Rivers State irrespective of their political affiliation, Nsirimovu, who is also the Executive Director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws, cautioned that without security, a state would not be able to achieve development.
He said, “I think that no matter your political bend in this state, you must support anything that has to do with security of lives and property because without security, without peace, development can hardly happen in any environment.
“People feel unsafe and this is real; kidnapping, rape and intimidation by young people whose only power is the possession of small arms. That can’t be tolerated. You can only tolerate that in a failed state.”
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