…demands unconditional release of members
The People’s Redemption Party, PRP, threatened to sue the Nigeria Police Force over alleged harassment and arrest of 22 party stalwarts in its Bauchi State Chapter on February 14, 2019.
This was contained in a statement signed by the National Chairman of the party, Falalu Bello, who described the harassment and arrest as unwarranted, who also accused the Nigeria Police Force of “crude attempt to scuttle the efforts of the PRP to provide a credible and viable alternative to the good people of Bauchi State.”
According to him this cynical abuse of security agencies to persecute political partisan agendas cannot and should not be condoned or tolerated in any civilized society and certainly not in 2019.
The statement reads in part: “The attention of the National Leadership of the PRP has been drawn to the persistent, illegal and unwarranted harassment of the leadership and members of the People’s Redemption Party in Bauchi State by the Nigeria Police, especially the Rapid Response Unit under the leadership of one SP Mohammed Baba Yola.
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“On 14th February, 2019 the said SP Mohammed Baba Yola led a team of Police men to arrest, for no legitimate or legal reasons, twenty two (22) leading members of the PRP in Bauchi State, in the house of Alh Shehu Abdullahi, Wakilin Birni, who is also the Party ‘s candidate for a House of Representative seat in the election of 16th February 2019.
“This is an unwarranted harassment and intimidation which is obviously a crude attempt to scuttle the the efforts of the PRP to provide a credible and viable alternative to the good people of Bauchi State, a happening which remind us of what happened to our members in NEPU in the First Republic.
“The timing of this unwarranted harassment is also very telling, coming as it is doing on the eve of the National Assembly elections in which our candidate is a leading contestant. This cynical abuse of our security agencies to persecute political partisan agendas cannot and should not be condoned or tolerated in any civilized society and certainly not in 2019.
“Failure to take the necessary remedial action immediately by the Bauchi Police Command would leave the Party with no other option than to consider all other Legal and Constitutional means of securing the rights and liberties of our members.”
He called on the Police top brass in Bauchi State to call to order the alleged police officers whom he said were behind the harassment and illegal arrest of his members in Buachi State.
“We call on the Bauchi State Police Command to whom a petition has already been lodged by our State Legal Advisor to immediately rein in these aberrant and rogue officers and authorize the immediate unconditional release of our members”, he stated.
