1) They're given powers to bear arms. Even though they say the police will have to licence those guns, licence only applies to a few individuals specified in the constitution, not a group of people who constitute themselves like another police. Besides, before you give guns to anyone, you must ensure he first is schooled and trained on the responsibilities that come with bearing firearms, and that he doesn't have any questionable character. So you see why this is against the spirit and letters of the Nigerian constitution?
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2) Members of this organization will be drawn from the militia arm of the PDP which comprises of cultists and militants and every unscrupulous scum of the earth from this state. When Wike gave them guns in 2015, we saw the result in Omoku, Ogoni, Andoni, Ahoada, Etche, and so on and so forth, and we have not recovered from it till date. We cannot afford to legalize guns in the hands of untrained criminals, bring them into government, and make them greater than the police by giving them powers that even the police do not have.
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3) These neighborhood cultists are given powers to arrest anybody they like on mere grounds of suspicion, this leave room for political witch-hunt. Any arrest on mere suspicion without evidence is termed as wrongful arrest, a crime in the Nigerian constitution.
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4) These band of cultist and militant masquerades in our neighborhood are also given the powers to enter into any house and search without any warrant whatsoever. We all know in Nigeria today that only the court of law can grant search warrant, even the police cannot search without warrant, so any law that runs contrary to our constitution is dead on arrival.
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5) Again, this law says that if these neighborhood cultists violate your fundamental human right protected by our constitution, that you must first give them 30 days notice before you go to court. What will they use the 30 days for, to arrest you again, or are they the court of law that can grant justice? The Nigerian constitution did not say we should wait for 30 days before enforcing our fundamental human right, only individuals who are members of a lawful establishment who want to sue the establishment they belong to can wait for any length of time before they seek redress in court, because the law recognises the checks and balances or internal mechanisms within such establishment to do justice. The general public however are not bound by such laws, and so this law runs contrary to our constitution and therefore dead on arrival.
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6) You know the state Assembly is not allowed to make any law on security, this is an exclusive preserve of the National Assembly. If any state assembly does it and it is challenged in court then that law is dead on arrival. This is why we're trying to amend the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to make room for state police, otherwise each state assembly would've simply just made the law and carry on with it.
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7) This law empowers the neighborhood cultists to be involved in prosecution, but the Nigerian constitution empower only the police to do so. This is why even when the DSS arrest, they send it over to the police to do so. This law says the police must carry these cultists along in the prosecution, so if the police refuse to do so is this portion of their draconian law not dead on arrival?
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8) This draconian law gives the governor the power to direct the agency on what to do and how to do it, even the President of Nigeria does not have the powers to direct the police on what to do and how to do it. The president's powers starts and ends with the IG, and not with the entire police force. But the emperor Wike has crafted or coined this law in such a way that it would be his own private army for the 2019 election. Nobody in this country today has such powers, and if you support it, think about it tomorrow when someone else who does not like you is wielding such powers. This is another reason why this law cannot survive in any court in Nigeria.
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9) This law give these neighborhood cultists and militants the power to disarm people, which makes a mockery of the claim by the Wike's apologists that the arms that they bear must be given to them by the police. So if the police refuse to give them guns now, with what are they going to disarm people, with their teeth or with the illegal guns bought for them by Wike?
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10) The APC, knowing that this neighborhood cult group was made by Wike to intimidate Rivers people in the upcoming election have decided to stand in defence of democracy and justice by constituting a team of neighborhood watchers to watch the cultists. What Rivers APC is doing is in fulfillment of their role as a major opposition party in the State, and not necessarily because they're scared of anybody, after all no genuine APC member is scared Wike's boys scout. But if the genuine watchers are formed to watch the cultists, violence might erupt in the state, and we might have a state of emergency on our hands going into a major election. Is Wike ready for this, because Rivers people are ready for a reset of our dear state.
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Finally, I am surprise at the hypocrisy of this Rivers State government who quarreled with well-meaning Rivers people for nicknaming this State under him as Rivers of Blood, claiming that the state was peaceful, only for him to do a 360 degree to demand for a band of cultists with guns to watch over that "peaceful state". So why does these cultists need guns if Rivers State is peaceful?
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The public needs to know that the opposition to this draconian law by Rivers people is not political but borne out of deep concern for the well-being of our dear state. With the experience we had in 2015 when our people were killed and maimed in an unholy quest for power, and a subsequent declaration by the Supreme Court that Rivers State was a theater of war, before, during and after the general election, we cannot fold our arms and watch our dear state to be conquered by militants and cultists. Rivers people are not a conquered people and Nyesom Wike will know at the end of the day that there are people who own this state and we're taking it back from thieves and murderers and cultists and kidnappers.
