Bandits Kill 3 PDP Delegates, One Other in Niger

By Laleye Dipo in Minna

Three unnamed delegates to the People’s Democratic Party Governorship primary in Minna and one other person were on Wednesday killed by gunmen.
The deceased delegates  were in Minna along with 10 others before the primary was postponed till Thursday and were returning to their local government area, Mariga to collect their identification materials when the incident occured.
The incident  occurred between Mariga and Tegina towns, according to the report.
It was learnt that the vehicle in which the delegates were traveling ran into an ambulance by the gunmen and during sporadic shooting the four people were hit and lost their lives.
The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Primary Election Committee  and Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State Mr. Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo confirmed the incident in an announcement when the exercise commenced on Thursday.
Ewhurdjako asked for a minute silence to be observed for the deceased before also allowing a replacement for them from their local government area after consultation with stakeholders.
One of the delegates who escaped, Shehu Haruna, narrated how the incident happened saying : “we left Minna in the late hours when PDP postponed the Governorship Primaries to Thursday, We were retuning home to get our means of identification and on the road we ran into bandits who opened fire on our vehicle. Though we were able to escape since the driver was not hit, but, four people died instantly.”
When contacted the Commissioner for Internal Security and Humanitarian Affairs Mr Emmanuel Umar promised to confirm the story and get back to THISDAY but did not do so until the time of filing this report.
The police too could not be reached for confirmation of the story.