Abia APGA senatorial candidate accuses opponent of hiring thugs to attack him

The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for Abia South senatorial zone, Chief Chris Nkwonta has accused one of his political opponents of responsible for the recent attack on him by some political thugs.

Chief Nkwonta was attacked Sunday at Abayi Ohanze in Obingwa Local Government Area of the state on his way to attend the mothering Sunday service at The Apostolic Christian Church Mission (ACCM) in the area where he was invited as a special guest.

The gunmen who were said to be in their numbers, laid ambush for the convoy of the APGA senatorial candidate and on sighting them, reportedly opened fire at the team.

While the APGA candidate escaped unhurt as his security details immediately whisked him away in another car, the same could not be said of other members of the entourage, although the number of the injured was yet to be ascertained.

The incident disrupted the church service as the parishioners who were already inside the church for the day’s event, on hearing gunshots abandoned the service and scampered for safety.

In a press statement over the incident yesterday, Nkwonta said, “We are not ignorant of the antics, activities and political strategy of my main political opponent whose rise since the present political dispensation had always toed a violent pedestrian that have claimed the lives of many innocent souls with volumes of properties destroyed at last elections of the zone.

“It is on record that the said politician had on March 13, during a meeting at the residence of a PDP leader at Ohambele in Ukwa East Local Government boasted that all the radicals in Obingwa have been assembled and settled for political thuggery”.

Chief Nkwonta stated that what the politician whom he accused of incompetence should have done would be to showcase his achievements all these years he had been in government and allow his performances speak for him instead of resorting to violence.

He stated that Obingwa like any other Local Government in the state was free for every candidate irrespective of his or her political party to campaign, stressing that he would not be intimidated by any individual from selling himself to the people.

He reminded the man who he said was the mastermind of the attack that no individual has monopoly of violence, advising politicians in the state not to allow their personal ambition to drag the state back to the dark days of kidnapping and other sundry crimes which brought the zone on its knees some years back.