By Peter Okutu
FRESH crisis, which led to the brutalization of over 20 persons, including a pastor, weekend, erupted as two political camps of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Ebonyi State, vying for the State House of Assembly seat of Afikpo South West Constituency, clashed during the just concluded PDP delegates’ congress in the state.

Leaders of the two camps included the Chairman, House Committee on Information at the state House of Assembly, Mr. Enyi Uduma Chima, and Emegha Ude Okoro, contesting for the same seat in this year’s general election.

The incident engulfed the council area, even as the PDP delegates’ congress took place in all the 13 local government areas of the state, ahead today’s House of Assembly’s election primaries

When contacted, Mr. Enyi Uduma Chima was quoted as saying he was not involved in any act of violence, adding rather that  it was his opponent who wanted to disrupt the entire electioneering process because the opponent knew he wouldn’t win the primaries, let alone the election.

He said: “I have not been involved in any act of violence in my life.  I cannot do such a thing. We have the statistics of 20 persons who were macheted by my opponents.

“I learnt a budget of N20 million was dished out by my opponent. I have pictures to buttress my findings. I can make them available to you if you want. What happened was that some persons who went to paste my posters were beaten and macheted.

“They want to provoke crisis so that we will be blamed for it, so that the primaries would not hold. We have taken our case to the police.”

Although the lawmaker praised Ebonyi State Police Command for intervening promptly into the matter, he criticized Afikpo South Division of the command for not responding swiftly in dealing with the situation.

“I want the law enforcement agencies to be alive to their responsibilities. I reported this matter to Afikpo South division of the command, gave them money for logistics, yet they never came. Assuming the police were in place, this crisis wouldn’t have erupted. In fact, I blame my opponent less and the law enforcement agencies more.

“At the Police headquarters, the police are doing their work. They made some arrests and carried out interrogations,” he said.

On December 29, 2010, at exactly 2:00pm, the two factions were summoned for a meeting by the Commissioner of Police, Ebonyi State Police Command, CP Dipo Ayeni, which lasted for hours.

It was also gathered that the State Security Service, SSS, Ebonyi State, also invited the two parties for talks on how to checkmate further mayhem from occurring in the area as some arrests were reported to have been made by the men of the SSS in the state.

Police sources revealed to Vanguard that 21 persons had so far been arrested in connection with the crisis in the area.