Group Condemns Anambra CP’s alleged threat to shut down Oko Poly over Insecurity

By Praise Chinecherem

A civil society group, the League of Igbo Youth Lawyers has faulted statements accredited to Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Ikioye Orutugu following security breaches in Oko community town which left some persons dead and others injured or missing.

In a communique signed by its National Secretary, Barr Obinnaya Asiegbu, the group said the CP during a meeting with representatives of the town’s leadership, Student Union Government of the Federal Polytechnic in the town and other stakeholders, threatened to shut down the institution if incidents of insecurity continued.

The group said the CP also threatened to send the police to deal with the people who he blamed for the disturbances.

It wondered how the CP under whose area of operation serious security lapses had occurred and which led to loss of lives of innocent Nigerians, felt justified to employ blame tactics on a terrorized community even when investigations into the tragedy were supposed to be ongoing.

“This group views with dismay comments of blame and threat levied against the beleaguered community of Oko in Abambra State by CP Ikioye Orutugu during his recent visit to the town on the heels of the current bloody attacks by gunmen on innocent Nigerians living in the community.

“We note that investigations into the tragic attacks are supposed to be ongoing at the time of the CPs visit, therefore to put the blame on the door of the community or the students was most unworthy.

“We call on appropriate authorities to ensure that enhanced security is put in place in Oko town, and that the constitutional rights of Nigerians in the locality and its environs were respected, while those behind the recent mayhem in the town are unmasked and brought to justice,” the communique partly read.

Speaking with newsmen, Executive Director of the group, Barr Stanley Okafor, a lawyer said the CP stepped beyond his bounds by threatening to shut down the Polytechnic under any guise.

“I’m still searching the law books to find any law or Act of the national assembly which clothed the Anambra police commissioner with powers to shut down a federal academic institution as the CP had threatened to do in the recorded meeting.

“Obviously, Mr Orutugu stepped beyond his bounds by threatening to shut down the Federal Polytechnic Oko under any guise.

“Given the magnitude of the security failure that happened in the town, we expected to see a sober police chief who will commit himself to greater efforts to forestall future occurrences, not the concerted efforts put up by the CP to blame or threaten the community or the frightened students,” Okafor stated.