A 39-year old man, Mr. Cletus Anegbode Inedegbor, has raised the alarm over threats to his life by political thugs suspected to be loyal to a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his Esan native home of Esan North-East Local Government area of Edo State.
Inedegbor, a graduate of Business Education from Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma Edo State, is a building materials trader and a politician.
He is a member of the opposition Labour Party (LP) and exclaimed, in a telephone interview with our correspondent, that he feared being killed following repeated threats from the chairman of the APC (names withheld) in his community.
The said chairman, according to him, has dispatched political thugs to hack him down, wherever he is sighted in the country, noting that his ‘crime’ is that he frustrated their efforts to rig in the February 25, 2023 election and has also brought up “potent allegations that could be helpful to his party at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
“He has sent his political thugs to hack me down whenever sighted anywhere in the country so I won’t be able to testify as a witness at the presidential election petition tribunal.
“During the election, I was a party agent assigned by my party, the Labor Party as electoral party agent in charge of Esan North-East Local Government area in Ward 18 of Uwalor Usogho in Edo State,” he complained.
He added that he is also the youth leader of his community in Ward 18 of Uwalor Usogho and that during the election campaign, I worked tirelessly to mobilise and campaign for the LP “because I was
convinced that Labour Party presidential candidate was the best man for the job.
“This is because as a youth, our presidential candidate (Mr. Peter Obi)
represented the yearnings and aspiration of the youth and looked poised to bring a better life for the youth.
“I also believe that he (Obi) is trust-worthy, which informed my active participation in his campaigns, ” a distraught Inedegbor explained.
He also said he came short of reporting to the police in his locality because “of the powers-that-be, as I don’t want to be sold out, since they are the people in power.”
He thus urged for assistance from the rights groups and the international community, lamenting that he is currently in hiding.