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Anamb ra: Election Tribunal office burnt in fresh attack
By Chukwudi Achife
Bureau Chief, Enugu
Persons yet to be identified have torched the High Court
complex housing the Election Petition Tribunal in Awka destroying vital
documents including those relating to the petition of APGA governorship
candidate in the last election, Mr. Peter Obi, against Anambra State Governor
Chris Ngige.
The Friday attack has renewed fears that the perpetrators of
the last mayhem in the state are yet done with their shameful activities.
The incident occurred as the People’s Democratic Party
(PDP) local government chairmanship candidates accused Ngige of hatching a plot
to assassinate them before the December 18 council polls that the governor said
must hold notwithstanding the insecurity pervading the state.
The police have arrested a 26-year-old man, Uche Nwozor, in
connection with the incident, and they said investigation is still being
conducted into the matter.
The suspect, who allegedly sustained severe burns, was on
Sunday transferred to Abuja for further interrogation on the orders of the
inspector-general of police.
The police said the High Court building near the state
assembly complex that was earlier razed by hoodlums during the November 10
mayhem, was torched last Friday by some unknown persons.
They added that they acted on a tip-off and invaded the
premises of the court where they arrested the suspect.
But before he was moved to Abuja, Nwozor said he was picked
up from his residence in Awka on Friday, saying the burns on his body resulted
from an explosion in his bus at Abagana about 4.30 p.m. same day.
A senior police officer at the Central Police Station, Awka
told journalists on Sunday that the suspect who sustained severe burns was
apprehended while trying to escape from the scene of the incident.
"Other suspects escaped on sighting policemen but this
particular man could not run because of the injuries he sustained while trying
to set the building ablaze. He was arrested and detained at the Criminal
Investigation Department from where he was transferred to the Central Police
Station on Saturday. He is being investigated and we have orders to transfer
him to Abuja for further investigation," he said.
Sources said the suspect might have made useful statements
that could help unmask those behind the series of arsons that destroyed several
public properties since the last mayhem.
The aggrieved chairmanship candidates alleged in a petition
to President Olusegun Obasanjo that seven of their supporters were either
"kidnapped, tortured, shot or murdered" by members of Ngige’s
Anambra Vigilante Services (AVS) in the last two weeks, and urged the president
to order full investigation into the activities of the AVS and the government.
In their petition to the president dated December 6 the
candidates alleged that the AVS members attacked PDP supporters during the
visit of the Senate Committee on State and Local Government Administration to
Awka on November 29 .
They said that members of the AVS headed to the Anambra
Broadcasting Service headquarter at Aroma Junction and shot at PDP supporters
who came to welcome the senate committee members.
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