Tragedy was averted by sheer providence as the man whom many have favoured to pick the APGA governorship ticket, Mr. Okey Eze escaped death by the whiskers in what is believed to be an assassination attempt on Saturday last week after he attended a ceremony in Awka staged by the governor of Anambra state and the National Leadership of APGA to endorse president Goodluck Jonathan for the 2015 presidential election.
Sources reveal that during the said rally to which the president sent high powered representatives and which was attended by a mammoth crowed of over 250 thousand people, Mr Okey Eze purposingly was the only APGA Imo Aspirant who was allowed to address the mammoth crowed in the midst of others.
In his address which drew a great applause and admiration, Mr. Okey Eze succeeded in putting on a display his extraordinary Oratorical power and a clear grasp of issues which always set him apart as a governorship material that can create great positive changes in the state.
On the strength of the massive positive report to his brief but power packed speech, Okey Eze was also the only aspirant who was interviewed live on National Satellite Television at the event.
But on the way back to Imo State the convoy of his campaign organization which attended the event with him was attacked by armed men who overtook the convoy and block the road, at which development some members of the campaign organization escaped for safety in the bush. Before the security vehicles loaded with Mr. Okey Eze’s security details could arrive the scene the hoodlums it lamented aloud that the Governorship aspirant was not in the convoy and zoomed off.
As God would have it, Mr. Okey Eze had stayed back in Awka in order to have a brief meeting with some APGA Bigwigs. When contacted, Mr. Okey Eze declined comments and said he was still studying the situation
The latest assassination attempt on Mr. Okey Eze the ex-banker turned politician brings to about 10, the number of assassinations and other attempts on the lives of either out-spoken youths or visible youth leaders in Imo State who intend to contest for various political offices in 2015. They include the assassinations of two protocol officers to the impeached Deputy Governor of Imo State, Sir Jude Agbaso, those of two protocol officers to the Speaker Imo House of Assembly, Rt Hon. Ben Uwajumogu and a USA based artist and Imo government guest also a social media practitioner, Prince Noel Onuegbu. Lucky to escape assassination though his sibling and wife were hit by the assassin’s bullets, was Dr. Harold Wilson Onumo of Harold Stores and Pharmacy Owerri who is contesting for the Ihitte/Uboma State Constituency seat in Imo House of Assembly. Only last month, Prof. Protus Nathan Uzorma, a social critic and philosophy lecturer was nearly assassinated in his Owerri residence when about eight hoodlums stormed his house armed with deadly weapons, but for providence and the quick intervention of men of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) who were directed to the rescue by the state Commissioner of Police, though at the instance of the Police orderly attached to Prof. Uzorma. The last Saturday’s attempt on Mr. Okey Eze, generally seen and accepted as a symbol of the much desired but elusive generational power shift has raised the question of, “why are the youths the targets of hired killers and their sponsors.
Had the hired assassins succeeded with Okey Eze, the Police who are yet to unravel these mystery killer gangs and their political collaborators or bring any one to one of the suspect to the court would have described the ugly incident as another case of armed robbery as they did in the case of Prof Protus Uzorma.
