Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has said the claims by the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Dr. Alex Otti, that there was an attempt to assasinate him in his Abuja residence was false.
Ikpeazu in a release by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Godwin Adindu, said “Otti is merely trying to whip up sentiments to attract the sympathy of the security agencies and the electoral tribunal to his disastrous petition.”
He said, “His lamentation is the cry of a drowning man.”
Otti had, last Friday, in Umuahia addressed a press conference where he alleged that his private guest house in Abuja was attacked and a policeman attached to the guest house killed by unknown gunmen.
Otti, who said he had left Abuja on Thursday morning for Umuahia before the attack, said, “It was a clear case of assassination attempt on my life but the God I serve did not allow them to succeed.”
He said the attackers scaled through the back fence of his house around 2 am and killed a policeman on duty in the premises during the raid.
But the Abia State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Udevioutu Onyeke, when contacted, had said Otti was not the primary target of the attack according to information available to him from the Force Headquarters.
He said the neighbourhood, where Otti’s house was located, at Maitama area of Abuja was attacked by robbers.
Meanwhile, Ikpeazu said his enquiries with the Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emma Ojukwu, “revealed that the incident did not exactly take place at Otti’s guest house neither was the policeman of the Special Protection Unit killed in Otti’s residence.”
“I have spoken with the Force PRO, Mr. Emma Ojukwu and he confirmed to me that there was an attack in the Maitama area of Otti’s private guest house, but that the attack was not exactly at his residence and that the policeman killed was not killed in his residence,” he said.
According to Ikpeazu, the FPPRO confirmed that the policeman was killed in the building housing NESTOIL, which is a totally different compound from where Otti’s guest house is located.
He insisted that “Otti’s claim is part of his grand plan to influence the tribunal through emotional pressure to move the sittings to Abuja.”
Ikpeazu said that Abia had no security issues that would warrant relocating the tribunal to Abuja as allegedly being sought by Otti.
Also, the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Abia State on Friday ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to allow the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Dr. Alex Otti, access to inspect materials used during the last poll.
This followed a motion filed by Otti’s lead counsel, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), praying the tribunal to prevail on INEC to produce the materials for his client to inspect
