A 24 – hour security ring has been placed on about eleven (11) council areas of Anambra State ahead of the rescheduled INEC ordered re-run elections, to forestall further breakdown of law and order.
This was sequel to the burning down of three vehicles belonging to supporters of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) by suspected thugs from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for the Njikoka/Anaocha/Dunkofia federal constituency in forthcoming rescheduled election, Uche Ekwunife in Agulu, Anaocha Council area.
The Police Public Relatives Officer (PPRO) in the State, Emeka Chukwuemeka who confirmed the ugly incidences yesterday, disclosed that an intense man-hunt has already been placed on the hoodlums.
He warned parents to put their children under control and to go about their normal daily activities peacefully. According to him, anyone who allows himself to be used as a political thug would be dealt with.
The police image-maker said the report on the incidences involving the burning of ACN vehicle belonging to the Anaocha party chairman, Chief Raphael Egbobe and another Peugeot pickup van packed beside it in his Ogbu-ifite village in Agulu by unknown gunmen who invaded his house late Thursday was received. He also noted that a town- crier Emeka Okafor who was contracted to announce a proposed rally of the ACN candidate for Anaocha/Njikoka/Dunukofia federal constituency, Mr. Dozie Nwankwo was equally noted. He said security men have been detailed round the families of these individuals who have been under threat and that the situation which he said is under control.
Narrating his experience, the town-crier, Okafor, from Nkitaku village, Agulu said, “I get several phone calls from someone who gave his name simply as Iko Onuorah Onyemenan a known trouble-shooter in the neighbourhood who is also the Chief thug of a highly placed state government official (names withheld).
“He warned me to stop announcing or working for ACN or any other party, apart from the APGA, or he would kill me and my family.
“Because I had no previous problem with him or any other person, I simply told him that I am not a politician. That what I do is just a job from where I feed my family and that I work for all persons, group or associations without discrimination”
Egbobe, still traumatized from the ugly incident, said his children told him some strange men in a blade Toyota Hilux Jeep invaded his premises late Thursday night asking for his where about and his wife that they had bags of rice and envelope to deliver to him.
But when they learnt he and his wife were not yet back the strange men intensified the demand for them to open the gates but were rebuffed by the children. So they left and came back at about 11pm shooting sporadically into the air, before scaling the fence to set the vehicles ablaze and ran.
When the family raised alarm calling for help to salvage the vehicle before it spreads, the hoodlums came back shooting in all directions, and the neighbours ran for them lives.
