5 die as APC campaign rally ends on tragic note – SSA

Okerafor Athanatius, Jalingo

No fewer than five persons have been confirmed dead in Jalingo the Taraba state capital while displaying support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election. The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Taraba State Specialist Hospital, Jalingo, Mrs. Dorcas Philemon, while briefing the media said five corpses were deposited at the Hospital’s mortuary. Mr. Bala Dan Abu, Senior Special Assistant (SSA), Media and Publicity to Taraba State Governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku while briefing the media at Government House, Jalingo said that thugs hired by the APC leaders in the State turned the event into an opportunity to launch violent attacks on members and supporters of PDP. SSA said, the thugs carried guns, cutlasses and sticks which they displayed openly and the full glare of security agencies who according to him, looked the other way. Ishaku’s media Assistant added that on the eve of President Buhari’s visit, APC thugs went round Jalingo metropolis and its environs and destroyed PDP posters and billboards. While condemning what it described as the unfortunate bloodletting which it pointed out, has become the character of the APC in Taraba, the Taraba State Government however, described the incidence as a big contrast with the PDP Presidential flag off of February 5, in Jalingo which attracted larger crowd but recorded no incidence of crisis and deaths. “Residents of Wukari are still leaking the wounds of the APC violent visitation of January 29, during which PDP posters and bill boards were torn and a member if PDP killed. “The State Government will no longer fold its arms while innocent people are being killed and maimed by the APC”, he added.