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Supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Abia state and its All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) counterpart, at the weekend, clashed over the placement of campaign billboards at the Michael Okpara square area of Umuahia.
Pointblanknews.com gathered that PDP supporters had stormed the area and attempted to fix their campaign materials on the fence which already had campaign materials of the APGA governorship candidate, Professor Greg Ibe.
But the attempt was allegedly resisted by some yam sellers who usually display their wares around the former Umuahia main market who were said to have questioned the PDP supporters about the propriety of using their campaign posters to cover the ones belonging to other political parties.
However, a spokesman of the PDP campaign organization, Chief Uche Aguoru, alleged that thugs numbering over ten, suddenly appeared from the campaign office of the APGA governorship candidate, Prof. Greg Ibe, wielding machetes and other dangerous weapons and attacked the PDP supporters fixing campaign banners and destroyed the materials.
He further alleged that the thugs threatened to kill anybody who tried to stop them.
According to him; “PDP members who came to fix their campaign banners at the former Umuahia main market, Okpara square were attacked by thugs numbering over ten who came from the campaign office of the APGA governorship candidate and destroyed their campaign materials.They wielded machetes, clubs, and other dangerous weapons and attacked the men fixing PDP campaign banners and destroying the iron works and the flex banners already mounted, they also threatened to kill anybody who tried to stop them. It took the intervention of men of the Police to get the situation under control. The thugs on sighting the police ran into Prof. Greg Ibe’s campaign office.”
Reacting to the incident, the Professor Greg Ibe Media Associates, (PRO-GIMA), in a statement, insisted that it had nothing to do with the incident and stated that a group of yam vendors who usually hawk their wares around the Okpara Square had a misunderstanding with PDP agents who tried to deface the fence area of the facility.
The statement explained that the vendors were protesting attempts by agents of the PDP to barricade their wares and covering existing banners of other candidates with more imposing PDP banners.
“We hereby write to refute the allegation of involvement in any form of fracas with agents of the PDP. Being a people focused grassroots movement we have continued to champion the cause of issue based politicking while shunning every temptation by the PDP to lower our standards by joining them in their infamous style of uncouth politics fraught with crass incivility. To put the records straight, the Prof Gregory Ibe Campaign Organization knows nothing about the incident.
“Rather than resorting to the PDP’s deceptive scheme of crying wolf, Professor Gregory Ibe and his Abia APGA team continue to evolve more strategies aimed at providing paid employment, free education and free healthcare to Abians.”