The reported attack on the 2023 presidential flagbearer of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, now a chieftain of the African Democratic Party (ADC), and some other leaders of the party last Tuesday in Benin-City, Edo State, is highly reprehensible, to say the least.
It is a repugnant reminder of the needless violence that still punctuates our democratic trajectory, every now and then, even 27 years of uninterrupted experiment. It is rather troubling because our new-found democratic experiment— if we have to remind ourselves at this stage— did not come on a platter.
It was a costly, hard-won victory fostered by the gristly sacrifice of martyrs of democracy, who stood to the might of the gun, whose only weapon against tyranny was the people’s will, expressed loud and clear, through the pan-Nigerian mandate won by the late business mogul, Bashorun MKO Abiola, and whose blood eventually watered the crucible of freedom we are all enjoying today.
Hence, having gone through this torturous political journey, interspersed by inglorious eras of military interregnum, we ought to have by now outgrown this kind of infantile, mercurial tendency of having to express every minute disagreement through fisticuffs and gun violence rather than conciliatory, give-and-take negotiations.
This is what makes incidents like the Edo attack irksome. According to reports, Obi and other ADC leaders, including a former governor of Edo State and the party’s National Leader, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; another Edo ex-governor, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor; a former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Roland Owie; the National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement, Yunusa Tanko, and other opposition figures, had escaped a violent attack at the reception organized for an ex-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), who was the 2023 Edo State LP governorship candidate, Mr Olumide Akpata. He was defecting from LP to ADC.
The gunmen, who had swooped on the party’s secretariat at Ogbelaka Street, off Sokponba Road, Benin City, were said to have missed the party leaders by minutes. The ADC leaders had hurriedly rounded off the reception and left, having earlier received a security alert about an impending attack.
According to eyewitnesses, the attackers, who arrived in an unmarked Sienna bus and on a motorcycle, fired several gunshots and vandalised party property, including chairs, canopies and banners. Some party members were said to have sustained injuries.
The assailants thereafter reportedly proceeded to the residence of Chief Odigie-Oyegun, on Reservation Road, where more gunshots were fired and vehicles parked near the gate were riddled with bullets.
A video circulating online showed damaged vehicles and a gate perforated with bullet holes. But no life was lost in the attack.
Expectedly, virtually all the ADC leaders who spoke, including the party’s spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, pointed accusing fingers at the ruling party and particularly Edo governor, Monday Okpebholo, for the shooting incident. And the common refrain everyone was alluding to was the alleged warning issued to Peter Obi by the governor on July 18, last year, not to venture into the state again without informing him (governor).
In a video that went viral then, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governor was speaking that day at a political rally in Uromi, Esan North East Local Government Area of the state, where he declared that Obi’s visit to Edo State then had triggered unrest and must not be repeated without his approval.
“This message is for the man who claims he has no ‘shishi’,” Governor Okpebholo had stated, an oblique reference to Obi’s popular avowal about his spartan life.
“There’s a new sheriff in town. He cannot just come into Edo without informing me. His security will not be guaranteed. If anything happens to him here, he will have himself to blame. I’m not joking.”
Okpebholo had alleged that Obi’s visit to St. Philomena Hospital School of Nursing Sciences on June 7, last year, where he had donated N15 million for the completion of projects in the school, coincided with the resurgence of violence and the killing of three persons.
The governor had added: “That man who says he has no ‘shishi’ came and dropped N15 million. Where did he get it from? After he left, three people were killed. For this reason, Obi must not come to Edo without security clearance.”
Abdullahi, ADC’s National Publicity Secretary, who described the attack as part of what he called an escalating pattern of political intimidation against opposition figures across the country, alluded to Edo governor’s earlier alleged threat against Obi.
In a statement shared via X last Wednesday, the ADC spokesperson referred Nigerians to what he called inflammatory rhetoric and threats preceding the incident, accusing Governor Okpebholo of making statements “capable of heightening tensions and triggering a breakdown of law and order”.
He recalled specifically that the Edo governor had said earlier that he (governor) could not guarantee Obi’s security if he visited the state again without security clearance.
“We are compiling all cases of acts of terrorism by the ruling APC against our party. We shall soon be making our reports available to all diplomatic missions as well as the ECOWAS Court of Human Rights,” Abdullahi added.
Edo State Chairman of ADC, Kennedy Odion, pointedly accused the APC of masterminding the attack.
He said: “We heard that APC was coming to attack us. We quickly cut short the event and ended the programme. Few minutes after we ended, we heard that thugs stormed the venue. They injured three people… After they scattered the place, they came to Oyegun’s house where we were having another meeting. All the vehicles parked outside were destroyed.”
Obi himself, in his own reaction, also obliquely accused the ruling party of being behind the attack. He said: “It is time to speak up. It is time those in government act. They are not going to be there forever. What they allowed to happen in the country today will take its revenge on all of us and the country.”
However, Edo governor’s spokesman, Patrick Ebojele, who denied the state government’s complicity in the shooting incident, said the governor’s earlier statement to Obi to always obtain security clearance whenever he intended visiting the state was a mere security advisory, not an intended intimidation.
He clarified that the governor’s comments at the time were “purely guided by security responsibility as the chief security officer of the state,” and not borne out of political hostility toward any individual or group.
Ebojele said: “We view any attempt to twist the governor’s security advisory into claims of intimidation or orchestrated attacks as unfortunate, misleading and politically motivated.”
Edo State Commissioner for Information, Kassim Afegbua, also debunked the narrative linking Governor Okpebholo with the attack, arguing that “If Peter Obi had informed the governor that he was coming, what happened today (last Tuesday) would not have happened. The governor would have provided security for him.”
The police has already commenced investigations into the gun attack.
However, like we posited earlier, the shooting incident is unfortunate because violence can only breed chaos, but we urge ADC to embrace statesmanship and be more dispassionate about the attack, instead of making rabid accusations in the name of playing politics, if it is really interested in unnerving the truth about the attack.
To this end, while investigations go on, the party should complement the security agencies by exploring all clues, including looking inward, towards unraveling the masterminds of the shootings.
In the first place, ADC, as a child of circumstances, hurriedly taken over by opposition leaders desperately seeking a platform to coalesce against the ruling party in their avowal to wrest power from the ruling party in 2027, has been fractured by fratricidal fissures both at the national and state levels.
Apart from tangles leading to factional crisis over leadership positions and control, especially in many state chapters, the original stakeholders of the party have also been raising hell in the manner their party was hijacked by the opposition figures.
Elements outside the ADC have alluded to internal divisions and squabbles, even in the Edo State chapter, as a possible clue to last Tuesday’s attack. For example, there were hints that a faction of the ADC in the state, led by Senator Owie, was shut out of a meeting held at Chief Oyegun’s residence last Monday, a day preceding the gun attack, due to the internal crisis within the party. Although the senator denied this, the import of our admonition is that the party should not close its eyes to all possible clues towards fishing out the assailants.
The National Publicity Secretary of APC, Felix Morka, while denying the party’s involvement in the Edo shooting incident, also made reference to ADC’s alleged internal crisis. He called for a thorough investigation into the attack, urging law enforcement agencies to scrutinise the ADC and its leaders as prime suspects, while reaffirming the ruling party’s commitment to law, order, and national security.
In a strongly-worded statement, which Abdullahi complained was too harsh in tone and language, the APC spokesman said: “Accusing the APC even before any investigation is carried out by law enforcement is particularly senseless and shows the ADC as a party that lacks focus and without regard for the due process of law. By its baseless conclusion, the party has declared itself to be the accuser, investigator, prosecutor, and judge in its own cause.
“We call on the police and other law enforcement authorities to carry out an expeditious investigation into the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice. Investigation of this incident should begin with a thorough scrutiny of the ADC, its leaders, and members as prime suspects.
“As a party of leaders without members, the ADC is overrun by internal leadership and cult-like supremacy struggles. Among other leads, law enforcement investigations should focus on widely reported violent clashes and confrontations among its factional leaders over control and access to certain meetings of the party…”
Going forward, however, we urge Governor Okpebholo to take more than a passing interest in the investigation of the shooting incident. He should exploit his closeness to the center to ensure that some of the best detectives available in the security/intelligence agencies handle the matter expeditiously.
This is with a view to fishing out the culprits within a reasonable spell. Let the outcome of the investigations be made public and the suspects prosecuted openly. This we believe is the best way to exonerate or otherwise Edo government from complicity in the shootings.