How Delta APC delegates fought dirty, sustained injuries in Abuja

MORE details have emerged on how delegates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Delta State threw caution to be wind to assault themselves at the party’s Saturday convention which held at the Eagle Square in Abuja.

TribubeOnline’s correspondent in Delta gathered that trouble started Saturday morning when the Chief O’tega Emerhor group discovered that the directive that only the delegate list signed by the out-gone National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun and the Secretary should be used as directed by the party’s NWC was undermined by the Senator Ovie Omo-Agege faction.

The Emerhor group was said to have discovered that the Senator Ovie Omo-Agege group had allegedly altered the approved Delta delegates list.

Senator Omo-Agege allegedly explored its position as the secretary of the accreditation sub-committee to alter the approved delegates list and replaced it with the one with members of his own faction.

The maverick senator also allegedly hijacked printed delegate tags for Delta and replaced it with the once he allegedly printed for members of his faction.

It was gathered that an attempt by some of Emerhor supporters to checkmate the Omo-Agege faction from supporting the accreditation which was billed to take place at AGIES, failed.

It was further gathered that some thugs loyal to the Omo-Agege faction, ably aided by the security agents, prevented the Emerhor faction from gaining access to the venue.

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One Mr Efe Akpososo, who spoke to TribuneOnline quoted a delegate lamenting thus: “when we got the wind that Omo-Agege had hijacked the tags and handed it over to Stella Okotete, we mobilized from Savannah where we went for accreditation to AGIES, but to our surprise policemen at the gate refused our entry.

“While we were being held back, Omo-Agege and his group were busy inside sharing the tags to their members and when our people protested, policemen started firing teargas at us, even into buses that conveyed our people to the place.

“Not to be suffocated, our delegates started running for their lives, when suddenly some young men suspected to be Fulani militia unleashed the attack on the delegates, leaving many with machete cuts, and about three with severe injuries and later rushed to Garki hospital.

“In the course of the attack and the commotion it generated, Omo-Agege and his group rushed to the Eagle Square, the venue for the convention and got his people to take over seats meant for Delta delegates.”

He added that the Emerhor group, however, got tags to clear their people and when they asked them to relinquish their seats, they refused and this led to a free-for-all.

TribuneOnline further gathered that Chief Great Ogboru, AVM Ajobena, Omo-Agege, Emerhor, Ochie, Kokori, Dr Ibe Kachukwu, all had to take cover during the melee.

TribuneOnline recalls that after the May local government and state congresses in the state, the Olorogun Emerhor’s camp came tops and got the Chief Oyegun-led NWC’s approval for its executive produced at the congresses.

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Meanwhile, TribuneOnline gathered that an attempt by Chief Ogboru, Senator Omo-Agege and Prophet Jones Erue faction of APC to deny the party’s state’s leader, Chief Emerhor and the newly state executive led by Chief Cyril Ogodo, access to the party’s National Convention at Abuja, which was stiffly resisted, led to the fierce battle that left the scores injured.

The supremacy battle between the Emerhor’s tendency made of Chief Hyacinth Enuha, Hon. Victor Ochie, Dr. Caro Ojougboh, and three other governorship aspirants, and that of Ogboru and Omo-Agege faction which took a worrisome dimension on Saturday at the APC National Convention is seen as a bad omen for the fortune of the party which is hoping to turn the electoral table against the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the oil-rich state.