Unidentified thugs on Monday in Aba, Abia State attacked the area office of The Sun newspapers in Aba, Abia state and beat up workers and some vendors.
The hoodlums numbering five who stormed the office located at 76 St. Micheals road, Aba inflicted severe injuries on the company’s cashier, took away the sum of N27, 500 which was the amount collected from sales and destroyed tables, calculators and books.
On entering the office, the hoodlums were said to have asked for the whereabouts of the Aba Correspondent of The Nation Newspapers, Sunny Nwankwo and his The Sun colleague , Okey Sampson, but when the cashier said they were not around, they started destroying property and inflicting injuries on both staff and vendors they found at the office.
Narrating the incident, one of The Sun’s Staff who sustained injuries on his head and arm told our correspondent that “About three hefty men came to our office around some minutes to 9am, asking us about Sunny Nwankwo, a journalist in Aba. We told them that we don’t know him. Not convinced by our response, they went ahead to show us the mobile number of the said Sunny Nwankwo, we still told them that we don’t know the number. They also asked about our reporter, Okey Sampson, saying that they will kill two of them soon”
“Another person who was standing at the door made repeated calls and immediately after the call, walked in and ordered his men to start beating everybody. They hit me with the calculator I was using to check returns from vendors. The vendors were not equally spared as they were also robbed of various amount of cash and sustained severe injuries.”
He also alleged that the thugs who arrived the office in a branded cab with the inscription, ‘Ochendo Youth Empowerment Scheme taxi’, with a hidden Registration number.
The staff added that while the hoodlums were leaving the office, they vowed to come back to burn down the office soon.
While thanking God, Nwankwo recalled that few minutes before the early morning attack at The Sun office, he received call from an anonymous caller with an MTN number 08036638088, luring him with an advert offer.
According to him, when he told the person to drop the advert at his office, the anonymous caller called again, threatening to deal with him.