Student Shot Dead at APC Primaries in Asaba

House member, Mrakpor, arrested for disrupting Delta PDP election

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

A youth said to be a 200-level student of the Federal College of Education, Asaba, Delta State, was yesterday hit by a stray bullet from policemen who were deployed to the venue of the All Progressives Congress (APC) House of Representatives primary election in the state.

This is coming as the member representing Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Mrs. Amaechi Joan Mrakpor, was whisked away with one of her aides after she acted violently to disrupt the primary election of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held at the Cenotaph, also in Asaba.

Although, the school is presently not in session, some of the student leaders were reportedly at the venue of the APC event to collect money from various hawkers who had besieged the place to sell their items like satchet water, groundnut and biscuits.

Two persons were said to have been hit by the bullets following the indiscriminate shooting by the police due to the rowdy attitude of the delegates and supporters of aspirants but the student, named Henry Nweke died on the spot.
The second victim, whose identity was unknown at the time of filing this report, was rushed to a nearby hospital in the city.

The Delta State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa, confirmed the incident to journalists but denied that the second person hit by bullets had also died.
In another development, the member representing Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Mrs. Amaechi Joan Mrakpor had to be whisked away with one of her suspected aide after she acted violently to disrupt the sorting process at primary election of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held at the Cenotaph, also in Asaba.

Counting was in progress when the self-styled evangelist and aspirant to the House of Representatives, stormed the collation table under the watchful eyes of thousands of delegates and upturned the table and emptied the ballot boxes.
The police also arrested the woman’s aide who joined her in disrupting the process.

Mrakpor, with 226 votes was apparently trailing a former member of House of Representatives, Ndudi Elumelu , whose total number of votes had not been counted, while those of Mrakpor and Onwusanya have been counted.
Total number of accredited delegates was 517 with 12 votes declared invalid; former speaker of the state house, Hon. Peter Onwusanya got 13 votes.