Enugu PDP faults APC chieftain on attack claim

From Chidi Nnadi, Enugu

Stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area of Enugu State have denied attacking and abducting the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in 2015, Chief Okey Ezea, during the November 4 council poll.

The APC Enugu State chapter through its Chairman, Dr Ben Nwoye, had at a press briefing alleged that Chief Ezea was brutalized and kidnapped during the November 4 local government election by political thugs working for a PDP chieftain and state Commissioner for Transport, Vitus Okechi, and called on the security agencies to arrest and investigate him.

But the stakeholders who addressed newsmen at the PDP state secretariat exonerated Okechi from the allegations, saying that it was instead Ezea who attacked the PDP members, including his brother’s wife, Mrs Victoria Ukwueze, who was hospitalized as a result of the injuries she sustained.

The member representing Igbo-Eze South in the state House of Assembly, Hon. Erochukwu Ukwueze, who led the stakeholders to address newsmen at the state party secretariat said: “The attention of the stakeholders of Igbo-Eze South Peoples Democratic Party has been drawn to the contrived, kindergarten and spurious allegation ostensibly sponsored by All Progressives Congress (APC) and their former governorship aspirant, Mr Okey Ezea, against some of our revered stakeholders with respect to the fallout of the just concluded local government elections held on the 4th of November, 2017.

“The allegation of torture and kidnapping of Mr Okey Ezea is likened to the proverbial ‘kettle calling a pot black.’ As PDP stakeholders in Igbo-Eze South local government, our experience in the hands of Mr Okey Ezea is better imagined.

“In the said media briefing, the Honourable Commissioner for Transport, Mr Vitus Okechi and Hon. Sunday Emeka Ajogwu, the vice-chairmanship-elect of Igbo-Eze South Local Government were mischievously linked with Mr Ezea’s unfortunate and self-inflicted injury of 4th November, 2017.”

The PDP stakeholders who assembled eight persons with various degrees of injuries claimed that they were injured by the thugs brought by Chief Ezea.

They said they would no way have attacked Ezea because they see him as a PDP member though he claimed to be in the APC.