November 08, (THEWILL) – Hoodlums on Saturday attacked journalists and election observers at Okija, Anambra State, during the governorship election.
The journalists were Afam Aminu Chimezie, Onitsha correspondent of Business News Newspaper; Gloria Anaeze, Onitsha Correspondent of Daily Independent Newspaper; Eche Nwaobasi, also of Daily Independent Newspaper and the Onitsha Correspondent of Anambra State-owned Newspaper, National Light.
After meeting with Nze Nwamkpo to ascertain the state of things in his area and deciding to visit some of the polling centres in the town, the team of journalists and three election observers, comprising two men and a woman, decided to visit one of the illustrious sons of the community, Chief Dr. Daniel Chukwudozie, who was, however, away from the community.
While returning from Dr. Chukwudozie’s house, they were stopped by a gang of hoodlums who barricaded the road, wielding machetes and clubs and ordered the occupants of the car to disembark.
The hoodlums, numbering about twenty, demanded N100,000 each. They also accused the journalists and election observers of carrying huge sums of money meant for distribution to party agents.
“Despite pleading that we were pressmen covering the election and had no money to distribute to anybody, they demanded for our handsets” and snatched some money belonging to the journalists and the election observers.
After accusing the team of belonging to political parties, the hoodlums opened the booth of the car “we were traveling in and brought out a gallon of fuel which had earlier been purchased for the car,” threatening to burn down the car alongside the occupants.
It was, however, after much pleadings from the journalists after snatching the handsets and some undisclosed sum of money from the visiting team that they were allowed to go and warned never to come back to the community again.
When the team of pressmen and election observers drove back to the house of Chief Nwamkpo (a Candidate and indigene of the community), he asked the team to leave the community immediately as nobody was happy with the situation on ground.
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