Police avert PDP, APC bloody clash in Makurdi

Sunday Trust gathered that youths suspected to be supporters of APC had early hours of the day blocked access roads around the High Level area of the state capital, Makurdi to protest an alleged burglary of APC governorship campaign office located near Kastina-Ala Street and the destruction of the party’s campaign materials.The development made it […]

Sunday Trust gathered that youths suspected to be supporters of APC had early hours of the day blocked access roads around the High Level area of the state capital, Makurdi to protest an alleged burglary of APC governorship campaign office located near Kastina-Ala Street and the destruction of the party’s campaign materials.
The development made it difficult for motorists to ply the route, just as the PDP youths reportedly started to mobilise themselves to counter the protesters but for the timely mobilisation of the police to the area forestall possible escalation of the crisis.
The spokesman of the police, DSP Ezeani Ameachi, however, told our correspondent that what happened was the handiwork of some miscreants who took advantage of the destruction of APC’s campaign billboards to disrupt traffic.
“Actually, what happened was the handiwork of some miscreants who we have not yet identified. We cannot say categorically that they belong to political parties until investigations are concluded,” he said.
DSP Ameachi confirmed that there was an attack on billboards, throwing of stones on campaign materials by the parties involved in the clash, but that no buildings were torched in the process.
According to him, the police swung into action immediately they were alerted and that after intensified effort to plead with the protesters, the road block was dismantled for motorists to make headways in their separate directions.
He disclosed that some arrest were made at the scene and urged residents to go about their normal businesses. He added that there was no cause for alarm as the police were already on top of situation, while warning troublemakers, no matter how highly placed, to desist or face the wrath of the law.
The PDP governorship campaign support group for Prince Terhmen Tarzoor had last Thursday called a press conference to lament the continued destruction of their posters and billboards by the opposition party.
The president of the support group known as “Booth 2 Booth,” Jerome Zaye, told journalists in Makurdi that the APC was extending their violence too far beyond the electoral guidelines, such that they were stooping so low to tear down Tarzoor’s posters and billboards.
Zaye had narrated how in the early hours of Thursday at 1:45am, thugs believed to be members of APC rode on about seven motor bikes to attack the Pages Park in Wurukum and destroyed the PDP’s billboards with razor blades, knives and cutlasses. He claimed the attack was repeated about 4:00am in an 18-seater bus which the invaders used to block the road along the Togo Supermarket before carrying out the violence.
Similarly, the media aide to APC’s governorship candidate, Tahav Agerzua, last Friday raised an alarm that his principal, Dr. Samuel Ortom had received reports from supporters that his billboards and other campaign materials had been destroyed in several towns across the state including the state capital where, in many instances, those of the PDP were mounted where his had been destroyed.
Agerzua said that Ortom had written to the Commissioner of Police and requested the apprehension of the culprits, adding that, “we believe that if the police and other security agencies did their work those who embark on such provocative errands in order to precipitate crisis can be located and arrested because they are not far-fetched.”