It was learnt that the venue of the rally was the home of (PDP) candidate for Izizi/Abakaliki Federal Constituency, Barnabas Ofoke.
Gunmen, suspected to be political thugs, destroyed properties worth millions of naira at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally venue in Ebonyi State, in the early hours of Friday.
It was learnt that the venue of the rally was the home of (PDP) candidate for Izizi/Abakaliki Federal Constituency, Barnabas Ofoke.
This was made known by the Deputy Director Media and Publicity PDP campaign council, Moses Idike, in a statement on Friday accusing the ruling All Progressive Congress(APC) in the state of being responsible for the attack.
Idika explained that the primary aim of the attack was to frustrate the Izzi local government campaign rally of their party which was scheduled to take place at the home of Chief Boniface Ofoke.
He said: “Today is the PDP governorship campaign rally in Izzi LGA of Ebonyi State. Thugs working for the APC governorship candidate, Francis Nwifuru invaded the compound of the PDP candidate for Izzi/Abakaliki Federal Constituency, Hon. Barnabas Ofoke and shattered the house, vehicles and sent occupants away.
“This was the compound the campaign was meant to hold since the APC governorship candidate and Gov. Umahi declared no open space for PDP in the LGA.”
“This is the LGA of the APC governorship candidate. The father of the PDP House of Representatives candidate whose house was destroyed as shown here was the political godfather of Francis Nwifuru and is still alive.”
The APC and the governorship candidate, Francis Nwifuru however denied having a hand in the attack.
A member of the party’s media team and an aide to Governor David Umahi, Brutus Orogwu said the incident was self-inflicted by the PDP.
He said the PDP staged the said attack in an attempt to tarnish the image of the APC and its governorship candidate, Francis Nwifuru who hails from the area.
He said, “The media and Ebonyi voters should disregard this propaganda by PDP, it is because they know they don’t have the capacity to defeat APC at the polls that they are coming up with these gimmicks to tarnish the image of PDP.”
“Nwifuru did not attack anybody and didn’t send anybody to carry out any attack. APC does not have things and does not believe in or engage in thuggery,” he noted.