Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, on Thursday, set up a nine-man commission of inquiry to investigate recent politically motivated killings in the state.
Members of the Commission to be chaired by Chidi Odinkalu, include Samuel Egbe as secretary and Nlerum Okogbule,others are Owunari Georgewill, Richard Ofuru, Asivosuo Oriye, Joy Ejiofor, Ayo Obe, and Father Michael Akiri as members.
During the inauguration at the Government House, Port Harcourt, Amaechi spoke about the fact-finding exercise which would last for 30 days, and that the essence for setting up the Commission was to investigate why the victims were killed, who killed them, under what circumstances and for the Commission to make useful recommendations that would help government forestall future re-occurrences.
Giving instances, he said “When I visited Obirikom in the Ogba-Egbeme-Ndoni local government area, in the household of one late Christopher Adube, 9 persons were killed by assassins, and those killed were his three children, his younger brother, two gatemen, and two other persons, while two of the late Adube’s children are still receiving treatment in an undisclosed hospital.”
He added that “There was a day I was arguing with the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State now posted to Enugu and I said, Commissioner, I am told 11 persons have been killed, he said, ‘no, only 7 persons.’ Again, in the same Omoku, whether it is 7 or 11 persons, these are human lives.”
Amaechi added that the same issue occurred at Okrika where he said “during the APC first day campaign, where the gubernatorial candidate of APC was seated, he would have been hit by a bullet, but, God saved him he had left that place earlier, and the police were present.”
In another instance, Amaechi said “The day I was driving to my village on March 28 for the Presidential election, I saw a corpse at the median of the road and I called the Commissioner of Police, ‘Karma, I have seen a corpse here, please, look for a way to take away the corpse and find out who did this,’ but, he did not. Whether the corpse is still there or not, I have no idea.
In the same vein, he said, “When I got to the village called Omuanwa, on that election day, young boys were shooting sporadically at innocent people and when they saw us, they ran into the bush. Then I came down and met somebody they have shot that is severely injured. We had to put him in a vehicle to rush him to the hospital.”
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