•Three on danger list in Obio/Akpor •Investigations on, say Rivers police
The secretariat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State was yesterday bombed by suspected thugs.
The Okrika explosion, which occurred at 3:14 a.m., destroyed the party’s secretariat, according to APC’s Chairman in the area, Christian Asifamaka, who described the damage as extensive.
Scores of supporters of an ally of Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Chief Tony Okocha, the leader of the APC in Obio/Akpor LGA of Rivers State, were also attacked by thugs yesterday in Port Harcourt, with three of them on danger list.
The attack on the supporters of Okocha, who is aspiring to represent Obio/Akpor constituency in the House of Representatives, took place in Ward 10, Rumueme-Port Harcourt in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area.
One of the victims of yesterday’s Port Harcourt attack, Ogbonda Amadi, with machete cuts on his back speaking from his hospital bed in Rivers State capital, said the APC members were holding a meeting, when thugs invaded the venue with machetes, bottles and other dangerous weapons.
Amadi said: “The Rumueme attack was masterminded by a loyalist of Nyesom Wike, who earlier vowed not to allow APC members hold their programmes or campaigns in Rumueme. Some of the APC leaders are still missing after the attack, as search party has been launched to know their whereabouts.”
While also speaking from the hospital bed, another victim of the attack, Samson Amadi, whose head was battered, said the leaders and members of the APC were being targeted by PDP thugs for attacks.
The APC chairman in Okrika said: “The APC in Okrika views this latest attack as a deliberate provocation by our opponents, the members of the PDP, to draw the APC members into a battle that will destabilise our beloved Okrika. This is unfortunate and the APC members in Okrika LGA will not allow Okrika to become a hotbed of crises, as the PDP members would wish.
“We are Okrika people and we know what political crises had cost our people in the past. Our LGA had always been the worse hit in times of politics. Our young children are the ones they use as canon fodder. We know this and as a party, we have resolved to toe only the path of peace, in the interest of our land and our children.
“We beg our daughter, the First Lady (Dame Patience Jonathan), to remember that the land of Okrika has never spared any Okrika person who brings trouble to the land or destroys it. We beg her (President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife) to please call her people in the PDP to order, because Okrika is bigger than anyone of us and we should not destroy it.”
The Rivers Chairman of the APC, Chief Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, while also speaking yesterday in Port Harcourt, called for the arrest of Wike and his supporters “now.”
Ikanya, who spoke through the Rivers Publicity Secretary of the party, Chris Finebone, also called on the security agencies to investigate the introduction of violence into the politics of Rivers by Wike.
Rivers APC chairman said: “Barely two days after prominent Kalabari chiefs, led by Chief Broadfield Michael-Jack, rejected Wike’s candidature as PDP’s governorship standard bearer for Rivers State and openly endorsed APC governorship candidate, Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, supporters of Wike unleashed terror on his (Peterside’s) party members and innocent people of Abonnema (headquarters of Akuku-Toru LGA of Rivers State), where he visited to campaign yesterday (on Saturday).”
