APC Expresses Outrage over Killing of Supporters in Rivers State

Onyebuchi Ezigbo The All Progressives Congress (APC) has raised the alarm at the seemingly-targeted killing of its members and supporters in Rivers State as this month’s general election draws nearer, wondering whether those who are bent on suppressing the opposition at all cost have finally unleashed their killer snipers.

In a statement issued yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the killing of nine APC members in two separate incidents in the state last Saturday night raises a very serious concern about the motive of the killings.

It said the fact that all those killed, including five at the D-Line of Port Harcourt and four along the Eastern By-Pass in the Marine Base near the state capital, were members of the APC is a clear indication that the killings may have been politically-motivated.

APC said what was also very worrisome was the freaky attack on Chidi Adi Amaechi, the younger brother of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and a student of Igbinedion University in Benin City, by machete-wielding young men who stormed his room in the early hours of yesterday and inflicted injuries on his head and arms.

According to the party, Chidi is currently being treated at an undisclosed hospital.

‘’It is difficult to see these attacks as a mere happenstance, against the backdrop of the ceaseless attacks on APC members and supporters in the Okrika council area of the state, where the opposition has been the victim of at least three bomb attacks, and the hate messages being purveyed by the First Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, who hails from Okrika.

‘’We know that because they have no answer to the runaway popularity of our party in the state, they are ready to do anything possible to prevent free, fair and peaceful elections on March 28 and April 11. By targeting opposition members and supporters, as well as their families, the anarchists will be hoping to trigger chaos and truncate the elections in the state. This is their plan, hence we are calling on the security agencies to act fast to fish out the killers in the state before they decimate the ranks of the opposition and scuttle the elections,’’ the party said.

It said the killings in the state were placed in the context of the accusation by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration was training snipers secretly while 1,000 Nigerians have been placed on a watch-list, it will be logical to conclude that the increasingly-fascist Jonathan administration may have finally unleashed the snipers on the opposition.

APC called on Nigerians in general and the civil society in particular to keep a tab on the killings of opposition members and supporters in the run-up to the forthcoming polls, with a view to exerting pressure on those whose duty it is to bring the killers to justice.

The party said, however, that President Jonathan bears the ultimate responsibility for the cold-blooded murder of the APC members and supporters, especially because of his constitutional role of ensuring the security and welfare of the citizens, as well as his direct involvement - and that of his wife - in the political crisis in the state.

‘’A president who has said severally that his ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian must not keep quiet when innocent opposition members are being bombed, shot at or hacked anywhere in the country, and more particularly in a state where he has inserted himself in a needless political crisis,’’ it said.

APC appealed to its members and supporters in the state to remain calm but vigilant, saying they must never retaliate the killing of their colleagues in order not to play into the hands of the anarchists.