Police seal off PDP convention venue

Sharks stadium, Port Harcourt, the venue of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Convention in Rivers State capital, has been sealed-off by the Nigerian Police.

Armed men of the force said to be acting on the directive of the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, stormed the Shark stadium in the early hour of Wednesday in about five (5) Police vans and barred anyone from having access to the facility.
The security agents numbering over five hundred also came with armoured personnel carriers, grenade launchers and other sophisticated weapons.

The policemen drove away the PDP officials found inside and asked television cameramen who had positioned their cameras at the stadium to leave.
Recall that an Abuja Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Okon Abang, yesterday made an interlocutory injunction stopping the convention and ordered the IGP to enforce his order.

He also order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to stay away from the convention.
Earlier, another Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, presided by Justice Ibrahim Watila had also made an order that the convention should go ahead, in which the Police and INEC are directed to perform their respective roles.

As at the time of filling this report, leadership of the PDP are having a meeting to discuss the development.
Some of the PDP delegates who had arrived Port Harcourt for the convention were still in their hotels awaiting directives from the Senator Makarfi-led caretaker committee.