Former governor of Imo state, Chief Ikedi Ohakim in a rare display of rage Wednesday flew off the handle and physically assaulted his confidant, Chief Vitalis Orikeze Ajumbe.
By the time his anger subsided, Chief Ajumbe had sustained a deep cut on his head and lacerations on his face which he would nurse and remember for a long time about the deadly encounter.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.Briefing newsmen at his bedside in Owerri, the state capital, Chief Ajumbe gave a graphic detail of how the ex-governor nearly sent him to the grave.
According to Ajumbe, who served as Ohakim’s agent at the December 8 PDP governorship primaries, the former governor owed him millions of naira accruing from the jobs he did for him, part of which included some millions he helped raise for him before the primaries.
“When i called on him to pay me, he finally invited me to his residence in Owerri after dodging me several times. He gave me a Fidelity Bank cheque which could not be cashed both in Abuja and Owerri”, he said.
Ajumbe added that he mailed the bounced cheque back to the former governor, who now invited him to his house in Owerri.
Because of the sensitive nature of the issue, Ajumbe said he went to see Ohakim in the company of two of his friends.
He stated that after about two hours delay, Ohakim emerged from his swimming pool and requested that the two friends of Ajumbe should go and leave him to thrash the matter out with him as friends”.
“I obliged his request and told my friends to go in front of the house to wait for me. It was then that Ohakim started shouting at me and was asking if I was using the dud cheque to blackmail him. I told him that I would do no such thing.
“But before I could finish what I was saying Ohakim grabbed an iron bar by the side of his house and started hitting me. He hit me first on the head with blood gushing out and later on my back when I fell down. He hit me severally with this iron bar and ordered that the gates be lucked for him to kill me the way he killed other people like me.
“Already, I had lost consciousness and the friends I told to wait for me in front started hearing his voice and rushed to revive me and helped me out of the place before I could be killed. It was then that he realized that those friends of mine did not leave as he had requested”, he said.
He however stated that Chief Ohakim on realizing the damage he had done thereafter pleaded with him to take heart even as he (Ohakim) joined to clean the blood that was gushing out of his head.
Ajumbe, who thanked God for saving his life from the man he once called bossom friend, regretted that Ohakim could reduce himself to the extent of beating up a fellow man.
It could be recalled that when Ohakim was in power as the Imo State governor, he was heavily alleged to have flogged a Catholic priest in sutan and clamped him into police cell for three days.
Also, on November 1, 2014 during the PDP ward delegates election, Ohakim and his brother, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume were in a near fisticuffs at the party’s state secretariat, Owerri over who should control the delegates in Isiala Mbano LGA with both men shoving each other and threatening to slap each other.
Effort made to get the former governor to comment on the incident proved abortive. A text message forwarded to his telephone line was not replied.
