Top politicians loyal to the former Rivers State governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, have embarked on a move to check the activities of suspected political thugs working against the interest of the state chapter of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
Last week, suspected political thugs stormed the venue of ADC ward congresses in Abua/Odua Local Government Area, destroying the party’s posters and dismantling the canopies mounted for the event.
The thugs, who were armed, also beat up party officials and members who came for the event, injuring some of them in the process, and abruptly bringing the event to an end.
There were also threats of violence in a few other local government areas, a development that Amaechi and his loyalists, who currently control the party in the state, see as a threat.
Amaechi, whose convoy was attacked recently while heading to Ubima, his community in Ikwerre Local Government Area, to officially register as a member of the party, despite lying somewhat low in the state, already has a loyalist as the chairman of the party in the state.
The party’s chairman in the state, Chukwudi Dimkpa, emerged from the party’s congress held at the weekend despite uncertainties surrounding the fate of the Senator David Mark-led National Executives of the party.
In the aftermath of Dimkpa’s emergence as Rivers ADC chairman, some leaders of the party have voiced concerns over the action of thugs working for politicians who are strongly against the rise of the ADC in the state, putting the security of their members as their top priority.
The leaders of ADC in the state, according to an informed source, are convinced that the attacks against the party are from outsiders, based on the smooth transition of the leadership structures of the party from the immediate-past chairman, Chief Leader Sampson, to Dimpka.
The source added that the leaders of the party, who have pledged to continue with their activities, have vowed to resist moves by political thugs to disrupt the party’s rising momentum.
