A stakeholders, leadership and members meeting called to install a former federal lawmaker, Hon Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma as the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, was on Saturday fraught with violence.
The meeting had barely started when suspected hoodlums and political thugs struck, inflicting injuries on attendees, damaging vehicles and chairs as well as carting drinks and other items from the venue of the meeting, off Dumez Road in Benin City.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the attack, Hon. Agbonayinma said “The APC local government chairman, Hon. Sunny Ogbewe, called me that the leadership of Ikpoba-Okha were coming to meet with me to rub minds with me on the way forward for the party in the Local Government Area.
“However, it was a sad story. My friend, my brothers, one I will call my son, Osarobo Idahosa and Cromwell Osaigbovo, led many others, came here, destroyed, beat up the woman leader and her husband. Both of them are in the hospital as I speak.
“They also vandalized vehicles, broke chairs and tables and cart away drinks.
“This is not how politics should be played. Going violence and beating up elderly persons?
“For sometime, the people of the local government have been appealing to me to come and take leadership position. But I am not interested because of what I have gone through. I lost my son and I am still going through it because of the trauma.
“They came here to appeal to me to be the Apex Leader of Ikpoba-Okha”, he said.
Security was later beefed up in the area and Agbonayima while addressing the meeting said that those who carried out the attack “will pay dearly for all they have destroyed”, even as he disclosed that the attackers also carted away a generator brought to power equipment for the meeting.
He said it was tough for him to accept the honour APC members of the local government bestowed on him to be their “apex leader”.
“This opportunity given to me, I will not take it for granted. I will not disappoint you”, he said, adding that he would consult before taking decisions.