Itsekiri leader, Chief J.O.S Ayomike, who recently escaped assassination, says some  people wanted him dead to stop him from stepping into the leadership  tussle in  Ugborodo community  in Delta State in order to resolve a lingering problem.

Ayomike said  women in the community came to beg him to step into the crisis to avert bloodshed. “My role has been to support the traditional institutions in order to strengthen them. Is that why I must prematurely lose my life at 85 years?”, he told journalists at the weekend.

According to him, the problem  in the community started when Delta State governor  allegedly asked the duly and new elected chairman of the community to step down for the out-going one, a position he said  the new chairman rejected and promptly reported the matter to the community leaders.

The elder statesman stated that the “community leaders predictably reacted, through an advertorial in the Vanguard Newspaper in which the state government’s dirty role was exposed”, stressing that it was after that that, four armed men allegedly came to his house to kill him.

Ayomike added: “On Saturday, 8 October, at about 6:00p.m., four men allegedly arrived at the gate of my residence in a white Passat car and told the securitymen that they wanted to see me.

They were refused entry, which resulted to  a protracted argument. Then they pulled back and opened fire hitting one of the policemen on his leg. By the grace of God, I had escaped assassination”.