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From George Onyejiuwa, Owerri
A platoon of armed police operatives failed to stop the reception of the member for Ideato Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, by thousands of his constituents who lined the roads to welcome him.
This is as Hon. Ikenga, Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Downstream Sector, has vowed never to allow anybody to rig the forthcoming 2027 election in his constituency.
Ugochinyere spoke during a reception organised in his honour by the people of Ideato South Local Government Area of Imo State on Tuesday.
The reception, initially scheduled to hold at Central School 2, Aforukwu, Isiekenezi, was taken over by a platoon of armed police operatives, with an armoured personnel carrier stationed at the venue before the arrival of Ikenga Imo and thousands of his supporters. But the reception later held at the private residence of a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ideato South, Chief Bonny Ebili.
The lawmaker, who condemned the action, said they would resist intimidation.
He used the opportunity to reassure them of his commitment to providing basic amenities and infrastructure for his constituents.
“The Imo State Police Command and the state government, without any provocation, a few hours to this reception sealed the venue of this reception. That is why my people are on the main road. I want every Nigerian to see the level we have degenerated; it’s not yet an election year, madness has started in Imo again.
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“For long, I have stayed on my own, never looked for anybody’s trouble, and my people called and said Ideato South wants to receive you, which is within their constitutional right. The government released a statement that they have banned the use of all public facilities in Ideato.
“We wrote them and instead of being decent enough, they sent security men from Owerri. That is why it’s difficult to convince people to buy into state police. I told my people not to play into their hands.
“It’s not our fault that our people like us too much. We cannot apologise about it.
“We have shown maturity; we have shown strength; but we cannot negotiate our constitutional right; nobody born of a woman can make us do that.
“It’s high time the Inspector-General of Police looked into the Imo Police Command; we have suffered in their hands before; we don’t want to suffer again. We will not succumb to this.
“This energy they are using, if they use it to employ the N500 million allocation to this local government, the schools will be built; but I build schools, solar lights, boreholes.
“It will be easier for them to write their will than to write results. It can never happen. It is situations like this, with other factors, that led to the collapse of democracy in 1983. As lovers of democracy, we don’t want democracy to collapse. Ordinary civic reception; that means they don’t want people to come out for election and if you don’t want people to come out for election, then there is no democracy because you can’t call it democracy when it’s actually not,” Ugochinyere stated.
