The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on Sunday evening escaped an attack at a meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in a hotel in Awka, Anambra State.
The meeting, it was gathered, was for the harmonisation of the results of the party’s ward congress held on Saturday.
As gunshots pervaded the scene, Ngige was whisked away by security agencies.
Security personnel repeatedly fired repelling shorts into the air to scare the mob who charged at him.
They alleged that the minister was trying to manipulate the result of the ward congress in his favour.
A member of the state’s ward congress committee, who was identified as Ali was not that lucky to escape as he was beaten to a pulp and stripped naked on allegations that he was among those drafted in the state to work in favour of Ngige.
According to Punch, the candidate of the APC in the November 18, 2017 governorship election in Anambra, Dr Tony Nwoye, had openly accused Ngige in the meeting of plotting to hijack the party in the state.
In the harmonisation meeting held to address the discrepancies in the party’s ward congress, Nwoye told Ngige that he was usurping the functions of the Congress Committee by asserting that ward congress took place on Saturday in the state while it did not.
Nwoye said he had been refraining from speaking about Ngige’s audacity and impunity over the affairs of the party in the state to avoid being accused of being bitter because he ran and lost the election on the platform of the party.
“Some of you here worked against me during that election, but my joy is that I lost the election and you lost too because most of you have not risen beyond the falling point,” he said.
