The Rivers Police Command has confirmed the arrest of three protesters for stealing Point of Sale machines and windshield wipers of vehicles.
Commissioner for Police, Olatunji Disu, said on Wednesday in Port Harcourt that he carried an on-the-spot assessment of the protest in various parts of the state and expressed dismay that miscreants had hijacked the protest.
He further said the organisers of the genuine protest had lost control of the crowd but warned that the police would not sit idly and allow hoodlums to terrorise the state.
CP Disu, said: “I give you my word, I’m going to find out what really happened here. But, I’m aware that hoodlums have hijacked this protest from them.
“They have a lot of people moving around with them harassing members of the public. About one hour ago, we just arrested three people who went around stealing POS among the protesters.
“We have thugs, we have people who have been stealing wipers from people’s vehicles. They’ve been trying to burn tyres everywhere and policemen have been going immediately to extinguish them.
“So, these are not protesters, thugs are among them. So if thugs are here maybe they came with them or something like that. But I give my word, I’m going to investigate and I’ll give you feedback about what I find out.”
He added: The things have changed. It’s different from how they started the protest. They’ve started going from one part of the state, part of the town to another, blocking roads, trying to force people to join them and even they have started threatening people not to open their offices and their shops.
“This has gone beyond peaceful protest. I am very surprised we got to this stage. You’ll notice we have a lot of women police officers around.
“A lot of my Divisional Police Officers are women police and they’re putting the feminine part of them into this job.
“They try to do policing by consent, getting close to people and they’ve been having wonderful relationship just like you said with them.
“They are so comfortable with them, they even provided water, biscuit for them but all of a sudden, the protest became too big than the organizers.
”They no longer could control the crowd. Even here they had a fight among themselves yesterday and they broke into three and they went their separate ways, and they started going to town, harassing traders, harassing people, threatening them not to come out otherwise tomorrow will be tough”.
The police boss said no professional police officer would turn deaf ears to threats and harassment of citizens.
He said: “It’s our job to protect lives and properties and we’ve made up our minds we are going to do it. We’re going to take decisive action if they take laws into their hands.
“We’re capable of protecting lives and property. It’s our job, we know how to do it so well and for your information our sister agencies have joined in properly.
“Very well, you can see everywhere you go, you see members of the Nigerian Army, the Air Force and the Navy, the secret service are around too, members of the Civil Defence you see them everywhere.
” And if you look up, you’ll find the Air Force and the Nigerian Police pilot flying to tell us what is happening from the sky. So we’ve all resolved to ensure that we continue to maintain peace in this state”.
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