Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s younger brother was yesterday attacked by machete-wielding youths in his room at the Igbinedion University, Benin City, the Edo State capital.
Chidi Adi Amaechi was injured in his head and arms. He is being treated at an undisclosed hospital.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) said it is difficult to see the attack on the younger Amaechi and other people with relationship to the party as “mere happenstance”.
It described the attack on the governor’s brother as “freaky”.
In a statement in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party added that the killing of nine APC members in two incidents in Rivers on Saturday night raised 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.
The statement reads: “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, Dame 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 there on March 28th and April 11th.
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 Rivers before they decimate the ranks of the opposition and scuttle the elections.
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It said if the mindless killings in Rivers are placed in the context of the accusation by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the Jonathan Administration was training snipers secretly while 1,000 Nigerians have been placed on a watch-list, it would be logical to conclude that the increasingly-fascist Jonathan Administration may have finally unleashed the snipers on the opposition.
APC urged Nigerians and the civil society 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 President Goodluck 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 Rivers
