Unknown arsonists on Sunday bombed the secretariat of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Abam Ama, Okrika Local government area of Rivers State. Okrika is the home town of First lady Mrs. Patience Jonathan.
An eye witness said the arsonists invaded the party secretariat in the early hours of Sunday with an improvised device suspected to be dynamite which they threw into the one storey building.
The witness tells Dailytrust that the explosives shattered some part of the building including the office of the party chairman while valuable documents were destroyed.
The Chairman of Okrika chapter of APC, Christian Asifamaka who confirmed the incident to reporters in said: “in the early hours of Sunday January, 11, 2015, some unknown group of persons threw dynamite into the party secretariat of our party, the APC in Abam Ama , Okrika LGA . The explosion which occurred at 3:14am destroyed our secretariat, bringing down the walls.
“The damage was quite extensive with the Chairman’s office being the worst hit. The APC viewed this latest attack as a deliberate provocation by our opponents, the PDP to draw the APC into a battle that would destablize our beloved LGA. This is unfortunate and APC in Okrika would not allow Okrika to become a hotbed of crises as the PDP would wish.”
He said: “We are Okrika people and we know what political crisis has cost our people in the past. Our LGA has always been the worst hit in times of politics. Our young children are the ones they use as a cannon fodder. We know this and as a party have resolved to tow only the path of peace in the interest of our land and our children”.
Asifamaka accused PDP of being the mastermind of the attack stressing that “PDP’s resort to violence is because they know that Okrika people have rejected them because of their inability to attract any meaningful development to the LGA”.
He called on Mrs. Patience Jonathan who hails from Okrika to call the members of PDP in the area to order adding that “Okrika land has never spared any Okrika person who brings trouble to the land or destroy ourselves. We beg our daughter, Mrs Jonathan to please call her people in the PDP to order because OKrika is bigger than anyone of us and we should not destroy it.”
