Police uses teargas to disperse APC Chieftains in Abuja

Security operatives on Wednesday, August 12, 2015 teargassed protesting chieftains of the Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC), who besieged the National Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja and refused to comply to the directives.
The Rivers State APC governorship candidate at the last elections, Dakuku Peterside and former Senator Magnus Abe, led other 48 APC candidates of various elective offices in the last election to submit their protest letter to the Acting Chairman of INEC, Amina Zakari.

Bloom Gist gathered that the protesters invaded INEC Headquarters at about 11:15 a.m, without a prior information which propelled a team of mobile police, and Civil Defence officers to stop them.

When they identified themselves as the leaders of the protesters, the Deputy Director in charge of security at the commission, Victor Egbun, urged them to send their representatives to meet with the Acting Chairman of INEC, but they insisted that all the 48 protesters must be allowed in.

The Deputy Director went back to see Zakari who insisted that she could only welcome the representatives and not the entire 48 persons because she was already in a meeting with the Rivers State Electoral Officer, Ghesilla Khan on the same issue.

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The security officials threatened to shoot the protesters if they crossed the barricaded areas, but they shouted, chanted solidarity songs daring the officials and moved towards the INEC gate, which had already been locked.

As they overstepped the boundary, security officials released some canisters of tear-gas in order to disperse them and left them gasping for breath.

The team also comprised the former House of Representatives members, including Andrew Uchendu, Otelemaba Amachree, Dawari George, Igochukwu Aguma, as well as other former members of the Rivers state House of Assembly, and the chairman of APC in Rivers state, Denis Ebiamo Ikanya.