Edo Government, Oshiomhole’s Camp Trade Blames After Bomb Explosion Rocks APC Chieftain’s Residence in Benin City

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo state, Francis Inegbeneki has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue the people of the state from the hands of Governor Godwin Obaseki and his Deputy, Philip Shuaibu.

Reacting to alleged bomb attack at his residence located off Ihama road in the Government Reservation Area, Benin City on Saturday, Inegbeneki said the state is under siege. The APC chieftain said he was in Opoji, in the Edo Central Senatorial District of the state for a rally to receive defectors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when he received the news that some unidentified assailants stormed his house in the early hours of Saturday with grenades.

“I got that information with rude shock.

“Frankly, I am short of words, it must have been politically motivated. After this successful political rally, I am going to Benin to assess the damage” he told journalists.

While maintaining his opposition to Governor Obaseki’s re-election bid,whom he said he suspected to be behind the attack, Inegbeneki warned that “for those drumming the music of war they should be prepared to dance to the music.”

It was gathered that the explosion caused serious damage to the building and a vehicle parked inside the compound but no one was hurt.

Narrating the incident, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu said thankfully no one was in the house when the attack happened.

“Very early this morning around 3 am, they went to Chief Inegbeneki’s house in Benin to throw hand bomb. They threw the first‎ one it did not detonate. They threw the second one and it detonated. Thank God there was nobody in the house.

“If somebody had died, I don’t know what they would have said.

“We have been keeping quiet not because we are afraid, but because‎ we own the house.

“Obaseki said he would destroy the Edo APC, but we would not allow him”, he said.

The Edo state government, however, blamed the National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole for the attack.

In a statement issued on Saturday by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Communication Strategy, Crusoe Osagie said the attack was part of the plan by the camp of the Chairman to create tension in the state and force the federal government to declare state of emergency in the state.

The statement read: “It has come to our notice that explosives and other dangerous weapons were used by some politicians in parts of the state to cause mayhem, endangering the lives of law-abiding citizens of the state in the process.

“The Edo State Government denounces the resort to such desperate and dangerous means for political reasons. This is reprehensible and most condemnable. It runs against the creed of our people to conduct their affairs in a peaceful manner; worse still, employing destructive means in politics is alien to Edo people.

“Intelligence reports available to us indicate that this is the next move by the suspended National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his cohorts in the Edo Peoples Movement (EPM) to create tension in the state with the intent of forcing the authorities to declare a State of Emergency in Edo State.”