Posted on Feb 12, 2020
• How my family narrowly escaped death, by APC scribe
• Accuses gov of masterminding incident
• It was the handiwork of EPM, govt insists
There were accusations and counter-accusations over culpability as the secretary of the Edo State branch of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Lawrence Okah, narrowly escaped death yesterday.
The attack which occurred when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) exploded at his residence is said not to be unconnected with the squabbles over the 2020 governorship election.
Before yesterday’s bombing, the Benin home of a leader of the party in Edo Central Senatorial District, Chief Francis Inegbeniki, had been attacked with explosives by perceived political opponents in the ruling APC.
Addressing journalists yesterday on the attack on his residence in Benin, Okah, who has been suspended by a faction of the APC loyal to Governor Godwin Obaseki, said he was asleep at night when he heard a loud noise and woke up to see that it was a bomb that exploded in his house.
He said it was by luck that he and other members of his family survived the attack, noting that a second bomb that fell close to his bedroom failed to detonate, otherwise, it would have been more devastating.
Okah said that the members of the police anti-bomb squad who came to the scene removed the bomb that failed to detonate, shortly after the first bomb blast wreaked havoc on parts of his residence.
He alleged that the attack was politically motivated and targeted at him for not supporting the governor in his second term re-election bid.
A chieftain of the APC and governorship aspirant, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who visited the residence of Okah, alongside other aspirants, including a former deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, condemned the incessant attacks and use of explosives on perceived political opponents ahead of the governorship election.
Ize-Iyamu, who also accused the state governor of being behind the political violence in the state, said the use of explosives to fight perceived political opponents was politics taken too far.
“Not too long ago, a former Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice in the state, Henry Idahagbon, narrowly escaped assassination while at his law firm in Benin.
“This is a former chairman of Egor Local Government, who campaigned throughout the state for Governor Obaseki during the 2016 governorship election. Simply because he is at the forefront of those saying that they cannot support the governor for a second term because the governor didn’t perform, he was almost killed,” Ize-Iyamu said.