The Labour Party, LP, caucus in the House of Representatives, has queried the timing and intentions of the recent arrest of Julius Abure, National Chairman of the party, in Edo state, describing it as cruel, dehumanising and an abuse of democratic ethos.
The Labour Reps expressed their dismay over the controversial arrest, in a statement on Thursday, by the caucus Leader, Afam Victor Ogene, in Abuja.
According to Tijani Momoh, spokesperson of the police for Zone 5, Edo state, Abure was arrested over a petition to the Inspector General (IG) of Police, in a case of alleged “attempted murder, conspiracy to commit dangerous harm.”
Ogene said the timing of the arrest, on the eve of LP’s primary election for the forthcoming governorship election in Edo state, which the Barrister Abure-led National Working Committee, NWC, is overseeing, exposes the ugly development as a crudely scripted political charade that offends the sensibility of every true democrat and puts to question the integrity of the police in issues that involve the political class.
The LP caucus called on the IG to investigate the underlining issues that has put the police in bad light, by “Once again soiling the institution in the mud of desperate tussle for political powers, by those who see politics as a do or die affair.”
Speaking further, Ogene said: “There is no excuse for the manner the police conducted the ill-timed and misleading arrest of LP national chairman. If there was any need for the Police to take Barrister Abure in, a simple invitation would have sufficed.
“The inexplicable dehumanisation and brutalisation of Chief Abure was uncalled for. Democracy ought to refine our security agents and bring out the best in them, rather than enhance their biases and prejudices in the society.
“It is absolutely unlikely that the National Chairman of either the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), would suffer similar ignoble treatment in the hands of the Nigerian police.
“In deed, what was the rationale for arresting a man of Abure’s standing in society in such a gestapo manner, drag him on the streets like a common felon, only to release him in the dead of the night?
“While we cannot prevent the nation’s security agencies from carrying out their constitutional assigned roles, we insist, as a Caucus, that civility, decorum and due process must be their watchword, always.
“Consequently, it is our demand that the perpetrators of this show of shame must be brought to book, if only to serve as a potent reminder to the Government of the day, that the days of the jackboots are long over,” the statement added.
