The All Progressives Congress, APC, on Tuesday, August 30, 2016, accused the Nyesom Wike-led Rivers State government of involvement in the assassination of one of its lawyers and popular human rights activist, Ken Atsuwete.
This is coming as the Rivers State Police Command announced that it has embarked on full-scale investigation to unravel those behind the killing of the legal practitioner.
Atsuwete, who was one of the lead counsels to the former chairman of Asari-Toru local government area, Hon. Ojukaye Flag-Amachree, a murder suspect, was murdered on Sunday, August 28, 2016 night by unknown gunmen, near his residence at Aluu community in Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State.
Prince Peter Odike, the vice chairman of APC in the state who made the accusation while addressing journalists at the party’s secretariat in Port Harcourt, said the party’s reasons for the accusation are “obvious and lucid.”
“The APC wishes to be on record that the Rivers State Government and their agents must be held responsible for the killing of Barrister Ken Atswete and the reasons for our charge are obvious and lucid,” Odike said.
“Late Ken Atswete was one of the leading counsels to APC chieftain, Hon. Ojukaye Flag-Amachree who is presently incarcerated on trumped-up charges surreptitiously inspired and driven by the Rivers State Government led by Governor Nyesom Wike.
“Officials of the state government have variously vowed to teach the APC and its leader, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi a lesson by jailing one of its most active leaders, Hon. Flag-Amachree. However, Ken Atswete, as counsel to Flag-Amachree, had thrown in everything into the defence of his client to the chagrin of officials of the state government who are the traducers of Ojukaye Flag-Amachree.
“Again, late Ken Atswete had not relented in standing with citizens and public servants against the wrongful use of state power. The many cases he has instituted in this regard attest to that fact.”
Spokesperson for the Rivers State Police Command, Mr. Omoni Nnamdi, said the commissioner of police has ordered investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing of the human rights lawyer.
