The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for Ebonyi South senatorial district, Sir Ifeanyi Eleje has condemned the attack on the party’s governorship candidate in the state, Prof. Benard Odoh, and described the action as heinous.
Eleje said: “I am shocked to learn of the brazen attack on the convoy of Prof. Ben Odoh, the All Progressives Congress Grand Alliance, APGA, governorship candidate for Ebonyi State on Thursday, 2 February 2023. The attacked, he alleged, was carried out by gunmen suspected to be Ebubeagu Security operatives and who fired bullets with aim of killing Prof. Odoh resulted in the death of his driver and severe injuries on his escorts”.
In a statement by his campaign organisation, Eleje said that the attack was one too many being perpetrated by anti-democratic forces in the state under the Dave Umahi-led administration using the “instrumentality of Ebubeagu Security operatives”.
He therefore, appealed to the Inspector-General of Police, and other heads of security agencies including President Muhammadu Buhari as the Commander-in-Chief, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the National Security Adviser, and the Director General of the Department of Security Service, to give the undemocratic practices in the state deserved attention.
Eleje extended the appeal to the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, the Nigerian Bar Association and the Independent National Electoral Commission.
For sometime now, Eleje is said to have been operating from outside Ebonyi State. His team said that he was secretly taken out of the state recently based on reliable intelligence that Umahi has instructed his para-military outfit to abduct his supporters and inflict serious bodily injuries on them. “I have also been informed that specific directives have been issued by the Governor’s team to the same outfit that I (his opponent in the Senate race) should be attacked, incapacitated, and hospitalised until after the Senate election scheduled to hold this 25 February”.
It is alleged that Eleje’s campaign activities have been disrupted as a result of “incessant harassment and violent attacks by a para-military outfit established and controlled by the Umahi-led APC government and known as Ebubeagu security operatives”.
“Even as I condemn this dastardly attack on Prof. Odoh and his entourage, the Director General of my campaign organisation, Mr Iheukwu Okogwu and some of our other team members have been forced to relocate outside Ebonyi State as they are being hounded by Ebubeagu security operatives, who are on the prowl and searching for these supporters based on the directives of Governor David Umahi”.
Eleje, therefore, called on the people of the state, particularly those in Ebonyi South senatorial district to rally around and vote for APGA candidates and protect their votes in the forthcoming elections in order to put an end to what he called the “ugly era of state-sponsored attacks and killings going on in Ebonyi State under Governor David Umahi’s watch”.
