Deputy Chairman of Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC), Peter Odike, has raised the alarm over an alleged plot to assassinate him.
Odike specifically accused the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of being behind the plan to kill him.
The APC chieftain made this allegation in a statement he issued in Port Harcourt on Thursday.
The statement stated he had been receiving threat phone calls from anonymous callers, adding that he had made the phone number of such callers available to security agencies.
As stated by Odike, the plot to eliminate him was comprehensive. He stated that the directive by the sponsors was for the act to be carried out irrespective of geographical location.
He maintained that the threat to his life was politically motivated by the leadership of the state PDP who saw his position as the deputy chairman of the state APC and his political antecedent as a stumbling block to their political aspirations.
“Information in my possession indicate that there is a well laid-out plot to assassinate me. The information further confirm that this plot is being made by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State using hatchet men and collaborators in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government in general and Ward 2 in Omoku in particular," he stated.
“I have been further informed that the plot is so comprehensive that it could be carried out irrespective of geographical location and space and that the sponsors of this plot are so desperate to ensure that I am immediately eliminated.
“May I also inform that in the recent past and up to the present, I have been receiving threat calls from anonymous callers and that I have made the telephone numbers of those callers available to the relevant security agencies.”
He, however, told security agencies in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, Rivers State and Nigeria that should anything untoward happen to him, the PDP in ONELGA and the state should be held responsible.
In a swift reaction, the Rivers State PDP dismissed Odike’s claim, saying that the state deputy chairman of the APC should allow security agencies to do their investigations.
The state Assistant Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Samuel Nwanosike, stated Odike was raising an unnecessary alarm, Punch reports.
Nwanosike urged security agencies to investigate the matter and ensure that those behind the threat to the life of the state deputy APC chairman be brought to book.
He said, “He (Odike) is raising an unnecessary alarm because the APC is a propaganda party. The allegation is not true and the PDP remains a party that cannot be linked to assassination or plot to assassinate anybody.
“We are civilised and will never have any reason to plan to kill anybody. His grouse is that he lost in an IPAC election to the state PDP chairman. Because he contested and lost, he has decided to damage the image of the state PDP chairman.
“The public should disregard such an allegation. It is propaganda. The security agents should do their investigations and let those behind such threat be made to face the wrath of the law.”