Over a hundred armed security operatives, in the early hours of Wednesday, took over the Sharks Stadium, Port Harcourt venue of the scheduled National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party to prevent delegates from gaining access to the facility.
Policemen and operatives of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, manning an Armoured Personnel Carrier, blocked the major entrance to the stadium along Hospital Road in Port Harcourt as early as 4am.
The development resulted in a traffic jam on some major roads in the state capital, leaving civil servants, businessmen and artisans stranded on the road in the morning.
Many of them were, however, forced to trek to their offices and various destinations.
Journalists, who had besieged the stadium top cover the event, were also prevented from entering the venue.
Some of the security operatives were said to have threatened photo journalists who attempted to take pictures of the situation at the main gate of the Sharks Stadium.
Speaking on the development on a live television programme monitored in Lagos, Force Public Relations Officer, Donald Awunah, said that policemen were deployed to the venue of the PDP national convention as early as 4am on Wednesday.
Awunah, who argued that it was the constitutional duty of the police to protect life and property as well prevent occurrence of crisis, stressed that the force had to seal off the venue of the party’s convention due to the tension amongst the different PDP factions over the event.
The FPRO said, “The warring parties need to follow due process to end their crisis through the courts and as a law enforcement agency, what do you do? You ensure that there is a superior court order. It is not about taking sides.
“If in the next one hour or two, we get another court order, we will take action. We are there for every Nigerian but when you are the first responder, you have to take action, you have to be proactive.”
On Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission had raised the alarm over the confusion it had found itself over the monitoring of the PDP national convention scheduled for Wednesday.
Justice Okon Abang of a Federal High Court in Abuja had on Tuesday ruled that the PDP convention planned for Port Harcourt must not go on.
The judge also warned INEC not to monitor the Port Harcourt convention and ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to enforce the court’s order.
Justice Abang’s order contradicted another order by Justice Ibrahim Watila of the Port Harcourt Division of the Federal High Court, directing the IGP to monitor the PDP convention.
