The founding National Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy, Prof. Udenta O. Udenta, has accused the Nigeria Police Force of contributing to the recent crisis at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national secretariat in Abuja.
Udenta made the allegation during an interview on Arise Television on Thursday.
The PDP secretariat was thrown into chaos on Tuesday when two rival factions clashed, prompting security operatives to fire gunshots and deploy teargas to disperse the crowd. The incident caused panic as supporters and officials scrambled for safety.
Udenta claimed the police played an active role in enabling one faction to take control of the secretariat. According to him, the son of the new party chairman, Tanimu Turaki (SAN), had earlier approached the police with concerns about a planned takeover.
“He went to the police to complain that some people planned to take over the secretariat. The police assured him nothing of such would happen,” Udenta said.
He alleged that despite this assurance, the security personnel allowed the faction loyal to Senator Samuel Anyanwu to gain access to the building early in the morning.
“Yet they allowed the Anyanwu faction to enter at 5:00 a.m. while the police watched. The police are complicit because if they had shut the place down from the start, Nigeria would not have witnessed that spectacle,” he said.
Udenta further criticised the scale of force used by security operatives during the confrontation, claiming that they fired “over 200 canisters of tear gas” at governors, former governors and senior party figures.
“You know what happened to Chiroma in Kano years ago — he didn’t survive tear gas. This was under the supervision of a certain DCP,” he added.