Assassination seems to have begun in Rivers State following the withdrawal of police aides to most political appointees and local council chairmen in the state.
Eric Ezenekwe, an aide to one of the principal actors in the deteriorating crisis in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, G.U. Ake, was said to have been tortured and shot to death Tuesday night.
The killing has sent shockwaves into government officials who see the withdrawal of their police orderlies and aides as a big security threat.
The new police boss in the state, Mbu Joseph Mbu, had defended the withdrawal of police orderlies, saying most of the government officials did not need the police details hanging around them.
An in-law to the assassinated aide, Felix Akpa, told newsmen in a telephone conversation that Ezenekwe arrived home at 11p.m Tuesday night only to run into an ambush. The suspected assassins pounced on him and pushed him into his bedroom where they apparently tied his hands, shot inflicted electric wire wounds and cuts at the back and ended with three shots at him.
Sources said the victim was incidentally alone that night because of the hospitalisation of his wife. His three children and a pastor living in his home were all out, the source said. The incident took place in Ezenekwe’s home in Erema in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local council area (Onelga) of Rivers State.
Akpa told newsmen that it was a man who had an appointment with the victim for a trip to Port Harcourt the following day (Wednesday, May 15, 2013), that found Ezenekwe in his pool of blood, and raised alarm.
The police in the area were said to have been called in and after preliminary inquiries, took the corpse away to the nearby mortuary, leaving the survivors in wailing and subsequent mourning.
When contacted, the new PPRO, Angela Agabe, said the command was not aware of the incident but promised to make enquiries.
The brutal killing has set a new tone of anxiety in a state already traumatised. It has also sent fears down the spines of political office holders who had been alarmed over the deepening involvement of the police in the political crisis in the oil-rich state. Both Ake and Felix Obuah, two chairmen involved in the tussle to control the ruling party hail from the same area.
IGNATIUS CHUKWU
