By JIDE AJANI, CLIFFORD NDUJIHE & TONY NYONG
UYO – SOLDIERS were, yesterday, called in to quell  a bloody clash between supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State Capital, which claimed at least three lives while several buildings and vehicles were set ablaze.

In a desperate bid to contain the spreading violence, the state government called in soldiers from the Ibagwa Army Barracks after police men on ground had been overwhelmed.

This is coming barely 10 days to the April general elections. There was no official security account of how the clash erupted. Both parties had their versions of how the fracas started.

ACN’s Account
The ACN’s account said trouble started when a convoy of supporters of the ACN governorship candidate, Senator Akpan Udo Udoedeghe, was ambushed at the Itu Junction on the Calabar/Ikot Ekpene Road.

The version of the ACN candidate, in a telephone interview with Vanguard claimed that “as our convoy approached the Itu Junction – and we had heard that our supporters coming from the Calabar/Itu Road had been forcibly turned back – we were ambushed by the PDP people.

“We had cried out much earlier and reported to the Police and security agencies that the PDP supporters were planning to unleash terror on our campaign but what has happened now shows that our pleas were not hearkened to.

“At that Itu Junction, what confronted us were stone-throwing and gun-shooting supporters of the PDP.  Our convoy was chased back while one of the buses which was conveying our supporters was seized by  PDP supporters. Even as I am speaking to you now, we do not know the whereabouts of those supporters.

“When our supporters returned to Uyo, the PDP people began to boast that I had been killed in the fracas, which occurred at Itu junction. This further created more confusion in the state.”

PDP counters
But the version made available to Vanguard by the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, contradicted the ACN guber candidate as he claimed that  it was the ACN flagbearer with ACN supporters who, instead of going about their campaigns peacefully, elected to unleash an unprovoked mayhem on the people and government of Akwa Ibom State.

According to him, Udoedeghe, his supporters, assisted by miscreants and hoodlums, attacked people with petrol bombs during which unconfirmed reports put the death toll at three.

Umanah, who alleged that the ACN faithful hid cutlasses in their brooms with which they also attacked people, said that during the mayhem many brand new vehicles at the state secretariat and houses including President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign office were burnt.

In the fracas that ensued, the private school belonging to Senator Alloysuis Etok, representing Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District, was set ablaze as the mayhem that spread like wild fire did not spare the campaign office of President Johnathan, opposite Total filling station on Abak Road.

The soldiers were called in to prevent further attacks on government property and human lives along Barracks Road. The soldiers cordoned off the road leading to Barracks Road.