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Police on red alert
Police on red alert
•Edo PDP splits
VINCENT ADEKOYE,
Benin
TENSION has gripped residents of Benin,
the Edo State capital, following the deployment of hundreds of policemen to the
state ahead of the much-publicised opening of the office of a faction of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the area next Saturday.
Daily Champion gathered that the security beef-up was due
to the alleged plan by another faction of the party to torch the newly acquired
office.
It would be recalled that two factions had
emerged from the state chapter as the climax of the 14-month intra-party crisis.
The crisis was due to the forceful removal
of the State Secretary, Mr. Bayo Ogbomo, by a faction in the Edo South
senatorial district.
Ogbomo, said to be a loyalist of the
Chairman, Board of Trustees of PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, was abducted by some
armed men at the secretariat of the party located within Okada House on Urubi
Street Benin.
He was later taken to an uncompleted
building at Gapiona road in the city where he was made to face a video camera
and read a letter of resignation, under duress.
The development made other members of the
state executive including the Chairman, Prince Solomon Aguebe, to vacate the
state secretariat for fear of their lives, with sharp division emerging within
the party.
While some party faithful who claimed to
be loyal to Gov. Lucky Igbinedion, continued to operate from the Okada House
secretariat owned by the governor’s father, the Esama of Benin, the other
group, which claimed to be loyal to Chief Anenih, have been operating a parallel
secretariat from the house of one of the chieftains of the PDP, Mr Samson
Esemuede.
The latter group recently secured another
secretariat office along the Uselu-Lagos road which is scheduled to be
commissioned on Saturday amid fanfare.
Contacted, the Publicity Secretary of the
Igbinedion faction, Prince Francis Iyasere, described the planned opening of a
parallel secretariat as amounting "to gross illegality and runs contrary to the
PDP constitution."
He said the "national body will not allow
that to happen."
On his part, leader of the pro-Anenih
group, Mr Samson Esemuede, claimed that their’s is the authentic PDP in the
state, pointing out that the party’s state secretary who was purportedly
removed, had since been reinstated by the national secretariat.
He said following Ogbomo’s reinstatement,
the group had considered the Okada House secretariat of the PDP no longer safe
enough for transacting party business.
Said he: "We are not running a parallel
secretariat. We have merely moved the secretariat to a safer location."
Also contacted, state police commissioner,
Mr Paul Ochonu declined comments.
A source at the headquarters of the state
police command told Daily Champion that this deployment of armed mobile
policemen was sequel to the imminent security threat this Saturday.
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