2 months ago
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Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Blessing Agbebaku
No fewer than five persons are said to have been injured as some men said to be supporters of the Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Blessing Agbebaku, and the Peoples Democratic Party, allegedly attacked members of the All Progressives Congress in Ward II, Uhunmora, Owan West Local Government Area of the state.
The incident was said to have happened on Saturday.
Narrating the incident on Monday, the ward’s APC chairman, Ogunlowo Collins, said the shop of the party’s ward Secretary, David Iruedo, was attacked and destroyed while injuries were inflicted on him and others because he refused to defect from the party to the PDP.
Collins said there had been an unprovoked attack on APC members earlier on the same day when one Kelvin removed a cap bearing APC’s inscription on a woman’s head and set it on fire.
He said, “Later in the evening, they came to the shop of David Iruedo who they have been pressurising to cross over to the PDP with over 40 boys. They came, backed by security men and they were shouting that they had been told to kill all APC men in Ward II.
“They came with machetes and clubs, broke into his store and gained entrance into the inner room, beat the boy to a stupor and left him for dead before we came to his rescue and took him to the hospital.
“They were moving from one house to another, shooting guns until the evening with Blessing’s (Agbebaku) official vehicle chasing APC members. There was another boy who they used plank with nails to pierce his head while another was hit with a plank on the head and collapsed before we rushed him to the hospital.
“We were at the police station and they only said we should narrate what happened.”
However, the APC on Monday evening demanded the Speaker’s arrest and his prosecution for electoral violence.
In a statement by the acting State Chairman of the party, Jarrett Tenebe, the APC said the incident happened exactly one week after it raised an alarm on “some heinous plans” to disrupt the election by Agbebaku but that no action was taken by security agencies.
“Our party subscribes to a peaceful electoral exercise, but will not restrain its members from exercising their rights of self-defence, including retaliation, if the security agencies fail to rein in Agbebaku and his sponsored thugs,” Tenebe warned.
Meanwhile, Agbebaku, in a statement, denied the allegation saying it was a beer parlour brawl between people who had personal issues, saying, “We are in the campaign period and it is a fact that I have overwhelmed the APC and the Labour Party with proven records of developmental strides across the Owan nation. So, they decided to come up with a ‘strategy’ to rope me into their mess and smear my name.
“We have also received confirmed reports of a plot by the APC to arrest me and take me to Abuja before the September 21 governorship election, since victory is not in sight for them.
“However, in all of this, I am not deterred as I have called on all Owan indigenes to join me in peaceful campaigns for more development and progress of the Owan nation.”
