The police have arrested a governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) declared wanted by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.
Governor Wike had asked the police to arrest Mr Farah Dagogo, the lawmaker representing Degema/Bonny Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, over activities related to cultism.
The lawmaker was arrested by a team of police officers at about 6:30pm on Thursday when he went for his screening at the south-south zonal office of the PDP in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
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Journalists were, however, barred by the fully armed security operatives from covering the arrest of the governorship aspirant who is a beneficiary of the Federal Government’s amnesty granted to militants in the Niger Delta.
In calling for his arrest, Governor Wike had accused Dagogo of hiring cultists to attack the PDP secretariat in Port Harcourt.
According to him, the cultists allegedly hired by the lawmaker stormed the PDP secretariat and disrupted the screening of aspirants for various elective positions.
“The Police must as a matter of urgency arrest Farah Dagogo, wherever he is, and must be made to face prosecution,” the governor had said in a statement by his media aide, Kelvin Ebiri.
But Dagogo’s media aide, Ibrahim Lawal, denied the allegations against the lawmaker whom he insisted had no hand in the disruption of the screening exercise.
He said the lawmaker was never at the party’s secretariat where the screening process took place, stressing that he is a governorship aspirant and not a National or State Assembly aspirant.
“The directive for the arrest of Honourable Dagogo violates the spirits of Section 14 and 33 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended),” Lawal said.
“The Inspector-General of Police should direct the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State not to heed the directive of the governor in this circumstance.
“If the Commissioner of Police, Rivers State considers it incumbent to invite Honourable Farah Dagogo, he is willing to make himself available on the receipt of an official invite from the police after tomorrow (Thursday’s) screening, not before.”
