How APC, PDP Thugs Clashed At Oba Palace Gate

By  Ikhili Ebalu, Benin City

Political tension snowballed into sporadic shooting in the heart of Benin on Saturday when supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party clashed as the PDP flagged off its campaign for the September 19 Edo governorship election .

Supporters of the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu and the PDP governorship candidate, Mr. Godwin Obaseki engaged in a shoot out around the gate of the palace of the Benin Monarch, Oba Ewuare.

It was gathered that APC supporters and the PDP were chanting solidarity songs while their governorship candidates were inside the Benin monarch’s palace for a function.

Trouble started when Governor Godwin Obaseki was said to have stormed the palace of the Oba of Benin, and youths of the opposition APC in the state, raised a song to apparently disparage the governor and his entourage.

In a reprisal, the PDP youths who were at the Samuel Ogbemudia stadium for the Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council for the 2020 Governorship Election flag off, immediately arrived the Benin Airport road and roads linking the Oba’s palace including the Plymouth road, where they engaged in a free for all.

Youths and supporters from both the APC and PDP sustained various degrees of injuries, while motorists scampered for safety as some motorists who were unlucky had their vehicles vandalised in the heat of the confrontation.

Vehicles branded with the PDP and APC campaign logo were not spared in the attack as they tried to navigate through the Benin Airport road and the Kings Square.

It took the timely intervention of security agencies present at the palace and other team of police attachment on the convoy of the VIPs including Edo born billionaire, Capt Hosa Okunbo and the APC governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu to halt the violence.

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