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The police in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, yesterday detained three children of dead primary school teachers who protested non-payment of gratuities and pensions of their parents by the state government. Ten others were injured as policemen at the Government House gate used force to break the protest. They used tear gas and gun buts to scare the protesters.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) D. R. Abibo allegedly ordered the use of Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) to drive the protesters away from the Government House gate.
Akibo was said to have ordered his officers and men order to beat up the protesters.
“Beat up these people. If you cannot beat them, let me beat them by my hand,” he was quoted as saying in the full glare of reports.
The police chief allegedly watched as some of the protesters were bundled into a vehicle.
Akibo said: “I told them to leave the road and stand by the side so that they can listen to me. but they disobeyed me as the Commissioner of Police. Who are they that they can’t listen or obey a simple instruction?”
“We are handling this kind of case at the commission and I was trying to help them in their case. But they refused to obey me,” he said before leaving the scene in his Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).
It was learnt that a police Inspector ordered the other policemen to drive the other protesters away – as far as Ibom Plaza or beyond.
The protesters, under the aegis of Next-of-Kin-of Late Primary School Teachers (NKLPST) in Akwa Ibom State, said they were forced into the peaceful agitation following government’s alleged insensitivity to their plight.
The group’s spokesman Pastor Aniekan Thompson said they resorted to the protest when negotiations with the government failed. According to him, the affected teachers served the government since 1999, lived and died while waiting for their entitlements.
Thompson said several appeals were made to the government and other officials, including the Head of Service (HoS), Mrs. Ekerebong Akpan, to no avail.
He said: “After numerous protests, a committee on pensions, headed by the Leader of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Sir Udo Kirian Akpan, invited us for a meeting and we met on August 29 and September 19, last year, and agreed ‘…that since government cannot pay all the backlog of entitlements at once’, it will start paying in batches, from the September allocation. They said we should not protest again, that it was embarrassing to government.”
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The Nation
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) D. R. Abibo allegedly ordered the use of Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) to drive the protesters away from the Government House gate.
Akibo was said to have ordered his officers and men order to beat up the protesters.
“Beat up these people. If you cannot beat them, let me beat them by my hand,” he was quoted as saying in the full glare of reports.
The police chief allegedly watched as some of the protesters were bundled into a vehicle.
Akibo said: “I told them to leave the road and stand by the side so that they can listen to me. but they disobeyed me as the Commissioner of Police. Who are they that they can’t listen or obey a simple instruction?”
“We are handling this kind of case at the commission and I was trying to help them in their case. But they refused to obey me,” he said before leaving the scene in his Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).
It was learnt that a police Inspector ordered the other policemen to drive the other protesters away – as far as Ibom Plaza or beyond.
The protesters, under the aegis of Next-of-Kin-of Late Primary School Teachers (NKLPST) in Akwa Ibom State, said they were forced into the peaceful agitation following government’s alleged insensitivity to their plight.
The group’s spokesman Pastor Aniekan Thompson said they resorted to the protest when negotiations with the government failed. According to him, the affected teachers served the government since 1999, lived and died while waiting for their entitlements.
Thompson said several appeals were made to the government and other officials, including the Head of Service (HoS), Mrs. Ekerebong Akpan, to no avail.
He said: “After numerous protests, a committee on pensions, headed by the Leader of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Sir Udo Kirian Akpan, invited us for a meeting and we met on August 29 and September 19, last year, and agreed ‘…that since government cannot pay all the backlog of entitlements at once’, it will start paying in batches, from the September allocation. They said we should not protest again, that it was embarrassing to government.”
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The Nation
