Rivers crisis: Police teargas newly recruited teachers

Armed policemen used tear gas to disperse 13,000 newly-recruited teachers who had converged at the Liberation Stadium, Elikahia, Port Harcourt, to pick up their employment letters from the Rivers State Government.

However, the Police Public Relations Officer, Ahmed Mohammed, had alleged that the government did not inform the command of the event, thus, the gathering was deemed to be illegal.

Ofuru, who dismissed the police claim, wondered why they did not invade the Alfred Diete Spiff main-bowl, which shares same fence with the Rivers State Police Command when the ministry conducted interviews for the newly recruited teachers.

Some of the 13,000 teachers had gathered inside the stadium as early as 7:30 a.m. and while they were awaiting officials of the Rivers State Ministry of Education to commence the issuance of their posting letters, a team of policemen stormed the stadium and asked everyone to leave. The fierce-looking policemen alleged that intelligence report at their disposal revealed that the gathering of the teachers was politically motivated.

Initially, some of the teachers refused to vacate the stadium but the policemen who came in about 11 police vans, started firing tear gas canister into the air. The smell of the tear gas forced the teachers to flee to Elikahia Housing Estate and Stadium Road, as the police cordoned off the stadium entrance.

Permanent secretary in the State Ministry of Education, Dr. Richard Ofuru, said the government is surprised by the action of the police. According to him, the teachers were asked to converge at the stadium yesterday because there was not enough space for them to assembly at the state secretariat.

'I am surprised, it is like when we have our inter-house in the stadium, it is purely a school affair, we don't tell the police. Now, this is purely an administrative thing that is not political. I don't see how we are going to invite the police. I mean, we have been using the stadium without inviting the police. There has been radio announcement for the past one week,' he said.

Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, said the Gestapo like action of the police is tantamount to sheer impunity and wondered the correlation between getting employment letters and President Jonathan.

She described the action of the police as unacceptable, she said 'Rivers people need to fight and ensure that this reign of impunity must stop.    According to her, it was clear that CP Mbu has an agenda to destroy Rivers State and Rivers people have to ensure that that does not happen.

'Virtually, this is the impunity we have been saying about in Rivers State. And, it is clear to Rivers people that this is the action of retrogressive forces who are totally against development, because, it is the first time any government, whether state or federal is employing 13,000 teachers at once'

'These are people who have been unemployed. Nigeria is crying about unemployment, education system is in a mess and a government employs 13,00 teachers, trains them and wants to feed them into the system, and somebody chooses to treat this with levity  and to tear gas the teachers and gives a very stupid excuse, saying that the teachers were there to protest against President Jonathan,' she said.

It should be recalled that this incident is coming barely six days after the police prevented 500 young Rotarians from leaving the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, to accompany Governor Chibuike Amaechi, on inspection tour of project sites.