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Magnus Eze, Enugu
It was a war foretold. And it came to pass as predicted.
Weeks before the electioneering process began, the Nigerian Army had asserted that there would be politically-motivated crisis in parts of Ebonyi State during the on-going election process.
Former Deputy Director, Public Relations, 82 Division, Nigerian Army, Colonel Sagir Musa, had in the weekly report on the Operation Python Dance III for January 13 to 20, said that, based on credible intelligence, troops of Sector 4, in 24 Support Engineer Regiment (AOR), Ebonyi State, had jointly conducted robust patrols in major flashpoints across the state. The army said there was increased presence of security agencies in places such as Afikpo, Ekpoamaka, Alike Achara and Nwankpa communities in Afikpo North and Ikwo LGAs of the state.
In the build-up to presidential and National Assembly elections, the state witnessed frequent incidents of destruction of posters and billboards. There were also mild clashes between the two dominant political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Then the Ebonyi State Police Command arrested two suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nweke Kingsley and Chijoke Uwakwe, allegedly over an attempt to bomb the Ugwogo Idembia Bridge in Ezza South Local Government Area of Ebonyi State.
However, it was on the eve of February 16, the date initially fixed for the presidential and National Assembly elections, that hell was let loose.
Daily Sun gathered that some hoodlums believed to be political thugs, at about 11:30pm, visited the Imeabali, Ezzama, home of the zonal publicity secretary of APC, Comrade Chris Nnanna Ogba, in Ezza South LGA.
The amount of bullets fired on the doors and windows clearly showed that the daredevils were on a mission to kill. But Ogba was not at home. But his octogenarian grandmother, who was in her room, was not that lucky, she was hit by pellets from shattered louvres.
At about the same period, there was mayhem in the Agbaja area of Izzi clan in Ebonyi North Senatorial District, where varying degrees of destruction were meted out to the people and their property.
For example, at Obegu Mkpuma-Akpatakpa area of Nwofe community in Izzi LGA of the state, a member of the local vigilance group was shot dead while six others sustained gunshot wounds when suspected political thugs stormed the area.
The incident, it was gathered, took place a few hours before the postponement of the February 16 date was announced.
One of the victims, Mr. Emmanuel Nwokporo, told our correspondent that he was on duty alongside his colleagues when a kinsman recklessly stormed the checkpoint. He said that efforts to caution him sparked an altercation that made him mobilise his gang to the scene.
Nwokporo said: “We were on duty when our kinsman came around on high speed. So, we flagged him down and queried why he was riding recklessly. He started abusing us, saying we flashed the torchlight at his face. He said that he was going to deal with us.
“Then he left. Shortly after, he returned with some of his gang members who came in a vehicle. Before we knew what was happening, there were gunshots everywhere. Seven of us were shot but one person died,” he said.
Thereafter, arson followed, as buildings and property worth millions of naira were torched in the community. And by the time the madness subsided, no fewer than 20 houses had been razed.
Also, a gang of six youths, suspected to be political thugs, stormed Ntezi community in Ishielu Local Government Area of the state between 7pm and 8pm on the eve of the postponed election.
It was gathered that the hoodlums injured a nine-year-old boy, Chibuike Aja, who was returning home from the shop with his mother, and another passerby, Mr. Onyebuchi Awoke. Awoke was in town to participate in the election.
Awoke told Daily Sun on his hospital bed: “I came back home from Onitsha in the evening. So, I went to the residence of our relation. When I got to the gate, I was trying to pay the commercial motorcycle operator who conveyed me when some boys on two motorcycles stormed the area and started shooting randomly in the air.
“I made to run and they shot at me. I fell down and they shot at me again. They were about six boys. This happened around 8pm on Friday night.
“I think that shooting was politically-motivated because our relation was contesting for something and he was popular in that area. I suspect that it was the plot of the other party to scare away his supporters so that they won’t come out to vote for him,” he said.
Mrs. Oby Aja, the mother of the nine-year-old boy, said they were on their way home from the shop around 7pm when the hoodlums stormed the area on motorcycles.
Not even the senatorial candidate of the APC for Ebonyi South, Prince Nwaeze Onu, was spared. He alleged that he was battered by operatives in the convoy of the state governor, David Umahi. He said he was assaulted at his Uburu home in Ohaozara Local Government Area. He and Umahi hail from the same community.
Addressing a press conference in Enugu; he said: “All my body was soaked with blood. It was a direct assassination attempt on me, yet I don’t have any problem with the governor. Prior to the incident, they had attacked my vehicle. My life is in danger.”
However, the chief press secretary to the governor, Emmanuel Uzor, said the assassination claim was a fallacious fabrication “aimed at gaining cheap popularity. The governor is not a candidate in the senatorial election and has no problem with him or with any other person.”
The Ebonyi State Commissioner of Police, Awotunde Awosola, confirmed that Nwaeze was attacked by Umahi’s convoy. But he denied that the incident was an assassination attempt.
“The governor’s convoy was passing and the boys of the governor attacked him but he was rescued from them. I was personally there. We are on the trail of the culprits and we are going to get them,” Awosola said.
Also, as predicted by the army, Ikwo Local Government Area became a theatre of war on the eve of the February 23 election. Two persons were reportedly killed, with three others injured in Amagu Ward 1, when supporters of PDP and APC clashed in the area.
The police commissioner, who also confirmed the incident to Daily Sun, said, “The injured are being treated in the hospital. We are treating them as suspects for now as they were involved in the clash.”
The member representing Ikwo/Ezza South constituency and candidate of the PDP, Lazarus Ogbee, accused the APC in the state of masterminding the attacks.
Ogbee said that one of those killed was his agent for the polling unit in the area. He gave the names of the casualties as Igwe Ukwa and Egbe Oruke, while those injured, in his words, were Ejike Simon Igwe and Alo Nwamgbo.
Spokesperson for the state police command, Loveth Odah, an assistant superintendent of police, said the command was doing everything possible to bring the situation in the state under control.
The APC and the PDP in the state have since been passing the buck. APC chairman, Pastor Eze Nwachukwu Eze, recently raised the alarm, calling on the security agencies to safeguard the lives of the members and supporters of the party.
He listed 10 violent and criminal attacks on APC members and supporters of the party within eight days, allegedly by identified PDP members and appointees of government.
At a news conference, he called for better measures by the security agencies and tasked them to ensure that the vow by the state government to crush and grind any position that would make the PDP lose was not implemented.
On the other hand, the PDP also accused the APC of being the aggressor, noting that the latter had been threatening to use “federal might.”
The tension in the state escalated again when the governor stated that intelligence information available to him indicated that some hoodlums had been hired by unscrupulous politicians to bomb the offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) so as to pave way for electoral fraud in the state. But he did not name the local government areas.
But the opposition described the allegation as strange, ridiculous, unfounded and infantile. It said the allegation “ominously conveyed the classical character of a witch crying in the night to signal an impending death of a child in the morning.”
Director-general of the APC governorship campaign of Senator Sonni Ogbuoji, Senator Anthony Agbo, in a statement obtained by Daily Sun, said, considering what had happened in the state in recent times, “deep fear is raised if this accusation is not a directional compass pointing to another mayhem stewing in the restlessly violent cauldron of the PDP in Ebonyi State. And we call on the security agencies in the state to immediately investigate the alarm.”
Meanwhile, the governor, during a visit to Agbaja Izzi, ordered the security agents in the state to be ruthless on any person caught using illegal firearms to terrorise the people.
Many watchers of Ebonyi politics are apprehensive that the security situation in the state may further deteriorate ahead of the March 9 governorship election.
