At least, three suspects have been arrested by the Rivers state police Command for stealing sale machines and vehicle screen wipers disguising as protesters in Port Harcourt
The State Commissioner of Police, Olatunji Disu, disclosed this while fielding questions from newsmen in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
CP Disu, who said he carried out an on-the-spot assessment of the protest in various parts of the state expressed dismay that miscreants have taken over the protest.
Disu said the organisers of the genuine protest have lost control of the protesters, saying the police cannot fold its hands and allow hoodlums have a free run.
“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 among protesters who went around stealing POS.
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“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 said clearly that the protest assumed a new dimension different from what it was set out to achieve from the beginning, pointing out that there are now splinter groups going from one part of the city to the other with ulterior motives.
“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 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, ” he stated.
The CP declared, “Nobody will close his eyes to that, no lawful police officer will close his eyes to such threats.
“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.