Okon Effiong, the Commissioner of Police (CP) in Rivers State, has stated that the lawyers of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state who were arrested were released after it was determined that the documents they had were not fake.
The CP stated on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics that informants in a hotel alerted the police that some lodgers were printing fake documents that appeared to be Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) results.
According to Effiong, the police approached the court to obtain a search warrant, which they carried out around 7 a.m. on Saturday.
He said on getting to the hotel, the police saw eight lodgers in three rooms alongside laptops and some documents, adding that three of them were released on self-recognition after realising they were lawyers while five others were released to guarantors.
“The moment it was established that three of the lodgers were lawyers they were released on self-recognition after the statement had been documented.
“The information was that they were printing fake documents and specialists from INEC office has come, inspected them and said they were not fake and so we do not have to press any charge,” Effiong said.
The police commissioner dismissed claims in some quarters that it was a case between the police and the APC.
“It was never a case between the APC and police. Recall I had said at the beginning of this interview that the identity of the lodgers were not known neither were those they are working for known. So, the issue of APC came after there had been taken to the station not at the hotel,” he said.