THE ongoing face-off between the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, and a former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Joy Nunieh, may have taken a new dimension, as the state Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mukan, has called on Governor Nyesom Wike to hand Nunieh over to the Police.
Insisting that the Thursday invasion of Nunieh’s home was endorsed by the Inspector General of Police and himself, the CP said Wike must play within the confines of the law even if he must protect his citizen.
The CP said, “It is really unfortunate because under normal circumstances, if His Excellency is saying that he went to rescue her, he is supposed to turn her over to me because I am the Commissioner of Police on ground and I will be in a better position to take her than for him to take her to the Government House. Nobody said he should not protect his citizens, but everything should be done within the confines of the law.
“If you rescue your citizen, we expect you to turn her over to the Police who are in a better position to protect her. I still believe he is going to turn her over because the exercise was legitimate. It was within the confines of the law.”
The Point had reported that the Rivers State Police Command said that the Thursday invasion of Nunieh’s home by armed security operatives was done with the approval of the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, and Commissioner of Police in the state, Joseph Mukan.
The Public Relations Officer of the state Police Command, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, who disclosed this in a statement in Port Harcourt on Friday, said the operatives were sent from Abuja to effect the arrest of the embattled ex-NDDC boss.
He added that, on arrival, the team registered their presence at the state police headquarters, where they got a go-ahead from the police commissioner.
Omoni stressed that the notion that the policemen were at Nunieh’s residence without the directive of either the CP or the IGP should be disregarded.
Wike, who had, on Thursday, rescued Nunieh from the siege, had said that he was told that the state CP was not aware of the invasion.
He said, “I drove to the place and saw over 50 policemen to take a woman as if she is a common criminal… I spoke to CP, CP said he was not aware. Tell me how something will happen in the state and the CP will not be aware. They said it was the IGP’s Monitoring Team, but I have spoken to them and from what I heard, even the IG is not even aware…
“For me, if there is any crime against Dr Joy Nunieh, I will not back her. Some say she is not in my party, so I should not intervene, but she’s a Rivers daughter.”
But the Rivers PPRO said it was wrong for anyone to assume that the police officers that attempted to arrest Nunieh were fake.
