Ikpeazu Outraged as DSS Operative Brutalise Ex-Abia Deputy Speaker

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, has expressed outrage over the brutal attack and multiple machete cuts inflicted on a former Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Hon Chinedum Elechi, who is the director-general of the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Organisation.

He alleged that the person behind the attack which happened last Sunday in Umuahia, the state capital, was an operative of the Department of State Services (DSS) from Ebonyi State Command. However, it could not be ascertained what brought the operative to Umuahia.

Ikpeazu expressed his anger in a statement issued yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Onyebuchi Ememanka, in which he also condemned the attack “in strongest terms,” saying the attacker must not go scot-free.

The statement said: “The campaign director-general was attacked by an individual who is alleged to be an operative of the DSS in Ebonyi State Command with a sharp machete, leaving him with multiple machete cuts all over his body.”

The governor demanded “a thorough investigation into this inexplicable display of murderous barbarism,” and urged the Abia State Commissioner of Police “to ensure that the assailant is made to face the full weight of the law.”

Ikpeazu commended the courage of the members of the public and men of the Nigeria Police who helped to overpower the assailant and recovered the instrument of attack.

The spokesman of Abia State Police Command, SP Geoffrey Ogbonna, said the attacker was arrested immediately after the ugly incident and kept in police custody.

He assured the public that investigation has commenced to enable the police determine the next line of action.

Meanwhile Elechi has taken to his verified Facebook account to narrate his ordeal in the hands of his attacker, saying he escaped death by the whiskers.

According to him, “The DSS operative wanted to machete me to death yesterday at Azikiwe Road in Umuahia in a broad day light (and) his excuse is that I scratched his car, which is not true.

“He chased after me; blocked the car I was driving in, came out of his car, used the machete to break the glasses of my car and commenced to butcher me in this way.”

Elechi said the DSS operative “meant to kill me in cold blood for what I don’t know,” adding that if not for the intervention of “bystanders who intervened, I would have been a dead man by now.

“I will need surgery for my left arm because the machete cut through my artery has immobilised my left fingers. It is only by the grace of God that I am alive.”

The former Abia Deputy Speaker asked the people to pray for him “to get through this.”