October 23, 2024
The Rivers State judicial panel of inquiry set up by Rivers state governor Siminalaiyi Fubara in the aftermath of the October 5 local government election and unsealing the 23 local council secretariats by Nigeria police, has visited the councils secretariat.
The 7man-commission led by it chairman, Ibiwengi Minakiri, on Tuesday, under took a fact finding mission to some council Secretariats that were burnt and looted by hoodlums on October 7, a day the democratically elected chairmen were to officially resume office after their inauguration by governor Fubara the previous day.
The panel visited Ikwerre, Emuoha Obio/Akpor, Eleme and khana local councils to ascertain the damages done to the Secretariats
After Inspecting the affected secretariats, and taking briefs from the council chairmen, the chairperson of the commission Ibiwengi Minakiri expressed dismay on the havoc wrecked on government property stating that the memoranda sent to the panel containing the violence will aid their investigation for objective scrutiny.
Ibiwengi Minakiri, who spoke to journalist said: “I want to say some of the places we actually went in to see, am sure if not for this opportunity we won’t have actually gotten to known the extent of the damage done to the property, because most of pictures only captured the outside but when went into the offices”.
READ MORE; Rivers state government inaugurates judicial panel on killings, arson
“We saw more than what we thought was the extent of the damage, what we have done today will go a long way to assist us in drawing our findings, at the end of the day we will make our recommendations which we know the government is going to address” she added.
While lamenting the damage done the secretariat, the council chairmen appealed to the panel to objectively and speedily do justice to their findings in order to bring the perpetrators to book.
Although, the Khana local government Secretariat did not suffer the same fate as other councils that were burnt, the secretariat was seriously vandalized by the hoodlums who carted away valuable property worth millions of naira.
