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Police arrest 500
APGA supporters
By Chukwudi Achife
Bureau
Chief Enugu
Hundreds of supporters
of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) have been arrested by the police
at the Court of Appeal, Enugu after they clashed with the police over the
seating arrangement in the court room.
They were in court to
hear the case between the party’s governorship candidate in last
election, Ugochukwu Agballah and Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of the People
Democratic Party (PDP) who was declared the winner.
The Election Appeal
Tribunal had fixed hearing on the appeal for Thursday, in the appeal filed by
Agballah against the verdict of the Justice Abdu Aboki-led Enugu State Election
Petition Tribunal, which in April last year upheld the election of Nnamani.
Trouble started when
policemen asked supporters of Agballah, who had besieged the court hall as
early as 8 a. m., to vacate some of the seats for supporters of the PDP who
arrived later and could not find any vacant seat.
They rebuffed the
request, insisting that the seats were not reserved for any one. It provoked
the police to crackdown on them.
In the ensuing melee,
the police fired canisters of teargas that sent lawyers, litigants, and
supporters from both parties scampering for safety. Angered by the development,
Agballah’s supporters hauled stones at the police and tried to prevent
them from taking away their members.
The police, however,
succeeded in driving them out of the court premises and took several of them
away in trucks after which the court resumed and concluded hearing on the
matter. It reserved judgment for an undisclosed date.
Reacting to the
incident, an irate APGA National Chairman Chekwas Okorie put the number of
those arrested at 500 and said it is unfortunate that the police could descend
in such a manner on innocent supporters of his party who had come to exercise
their constitutional right to participate as witnesses in a court case.
His words: "APGA
supporters came in thousands, numbering over 5,000 to give solidarity to their
governorship candidate. The police in Enugu, who saw them, first demanded that
few seats be given to PDP supporters. APGA supporters resisted because they
were early in court and there is no law in Nigeria that says a late comer
should be given a seat at the court, after all APGA supporters who came late
were outside the court.
"Then the police
and PDP supporters decided to use teargas to disrupt the peace at the court. As
I am talking to you, over 500 supporters of APGA have been arrested by the
police for offence they did not commit.
"I want to recall
that PDP supporters threatened the Ejembi Eko panel and members ran to Abuja
for their safety. The president of the Appeal Court then relocated the panel to
Abuja, citing insecurity of the judges; but based on pressure from the PDP
government, that panel was dissolved and a new one set up, which resumed
sitting recently in Enugu”.
Okorie condemned the
action of the police and demanded the immediate release of those arrested,
adding that APGA would not mind if judgment in the case is delivered outside
Enugu since the state has proved "very unsafe for the dispensation of
justice”.
Police Public
Relations Officer Shehu Adamu declined comment on the incident, saying he was
yet to be briefed.
in court
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