Posted by By Samuel Oyadongha on
THE police authorities have released the two Nembe chiefs allegedly detained on the order of the Inspector-General of Police over allegation of sponsoring youths to blow up oil installations in the creeks.
YENAGOA - THE police authorities have released the two Nembe chiefs allegedly detained on the order of the Inspector-General of Police over allegation of sponsoring youths to blow up oil installations in the creeks. Although the embattled Chiefs, Nimi Amange and His Royal Highness, Major Pedro Adukpo-Egi Ikata (rtd) were arrested and detained between May 5-18, 2006 at the Force CID Abuja based on a petition from some chiefs of Nembe allegedly sponsored by a serving Minister of State, it was however gathered that their ordeal was both traditional and politically motivated with armed soldiers deployed in the ancient coastal town to prevent possible breakdown of law and order.
Addressing newsmen on their return to Yenagoa after nearly two weeks of incarceration at the Force CID in Abuja, Chief Amange and Chief Ikata said their problem with the Minister started in 2003 after the death of Mingi XI, Amanyanabo of Nembe, Justice Ambrose Allagoa.
Some newspapers, they stated, had even speculated that the race for the next king was between Chiefs Ikata, Amange, the Minister and Mangete but that "the minister who has never hidden his interest to succeed Justice Ambrose Allagoa started the race for elimination of opponents."
Besides, they alleged that the Minister wanted his nephew, who is his personal assistant to be the governor of Bayelsa State in 2007 which he openly declared at a gathering at Okoroma during the 2005 Christmas that the 2007 governor must be a Nembe man.
According to them, the Inspector-General of Police on realizing that the allegations levelled against them were unfounded based on the reports from SPDC and NAOC that at no time were they indicted as claimed in the petition against them ordered their release pleading with them to forgive and forget about their ordeal.
Consequently, they are calling on the military high command to investigate the presence of the armed soldiers in Nembe since the federal government and the state governments are not aware of their deployment.
But the Minister had sometime last week denied any involvement in the arrest stressing that he neither petitioned nor instigated their arrest.
'I did not authorize the detention of anybody, but I know they are held for criminal activities. Their arrest has nothing to do with the chieftaincy stool," he was quoted as saying in one of the national dailies and described the claims of the detained chiefs as ridiculous, as he was not a contender to the vacant stool.