Secret Burial For 8 Police Officers Murdered By Suspected APC Thugs In Southern Ijaw (DETAILS)

About 30 hours after the cancellation of the re-scheduled governorship election in Southern Ijaw LGA, indications emerged on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 that the Bayelsa State Police Command is still counting its losses following the death of eight of police officers.
The deceased were said to be among the 13 persons that were felled by the bullets of the suspected thugs of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Meanwhile, the decomposing corpse of one of the victims of the last Saturday’s political disturbance, Ebiwei Emmanuel Bereda, was on Tuesday recovered along the creeks of Southern Ijaw LGA. His corpse has been deposited at the morgue of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa.

An eye witness account stated that the boat in which the victim was travelling was sunk by the members of the APC between Aguobiri and Angiamagbene communities in Southern Ijaw.
But the Bayelsa State Police Command were said to have decided to keep the matters under complete secrecy, to give the impression that no police officer died.
However arrangements, we said to have been made to convey the corpses of the eight dead police officers to their families for a secret burial.
But the Bayelsa Security Network, an independent security organisation, in a statement issued in Yenagoa by its Executive Director, Chief Ambrose Pamowei, said that while four of the dead police officers were shot dead during election duty in Oporoma, the boat conveying the remaining four officers to Foropa and Ezetu was said have been sank and drowned by a notorious group led by an ex-militant leader allegedly working for the APC.

He said, “Even though the affected police officers put up fierce resistance, they were overpowered by the superior fire power of the suspected militants. Findings by BSN revealed that the suspected thugs laid ambush for the unsuspecting victims along the creeks of Southern Ijaw LGA and subsequently trapped them by pretending to be soldiers on election duty.

“This development was contrary to the argument of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) in charge of the conduct of election in Bayelsa State, who described the conduct of election in the state as peaceful and that no life was lost. Despite the protest which was in public domain, the APC claimed that there was no protest.”

Pamowei condemned the position of the DIG, saying it was wrong on the part of a senior police officer saddled with the constitutional responsibility of protecting lives and property of the people of the state to “feed the general public with lies, lies, falsehood and tissues of lies.”

According to him, if a senior police officer could sweep under the carpet the killings of his men, “then the general public is not safe.”

“It is wrong on the part of the security operatives to be taking sides in any political situation. The report we had shows that some senior security operatives aided the killings and massive electoral fraud recorded during the last Saturday’s re-scheduled governorship election in Southern Ijaw LGA of Bayelsa State.”

With all these pieces of evidence, BSN wondered how a respected police officer would claim that no life was lost adding “those who died, were  they animals?”
The group, therefore, called on the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase to order the redeployment of a new set of policemen to monitor the yet-to-be re-scheduled governorship election in Southern Ijaw LGA.
Pamowei argued that such measure would be the only way to ensure free, fair and credible election because policemen on ground have compromised standards.