Suspected gunmen on Sunday night invaded the Abuja residence of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, John Odigie-Oyegun.
The bandits, according to the Police, met Odigie-Oyegun’s wife at home and snatched N200,000 from her.
But the APC chairman,who was not at home as of the time of the attack, said the armed men did not touch anything , including wristwatches and iPad, in his bedroom before leaving.
“I hope it was a case of robbery which was confined only to my bedroom. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t home. They operated and went away,” he told one of our correspondents on Monday.
The former Edo State governor added, “God only knows what the real intent was because they didn’t go to any other part of the house. They only went to my bedroom and harassed my wife to no end and went away. When you put everything together, it doesn’t make sense.
“I had two wristwatches on my side table. I had my iPad there and they didn’t touch anything. To make it look like a robbery, they messed up the whole room and went away.”
He also said the matter had been reported to the police.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu, had while confirming the incident, said it was a case of “break-in and burglary.”
“We have commenced an investigation into the incident. The sum of N200,000 was snatched from Oyegun’s wife during the attack,” he added.
Asked if the attackers could have had sinister motives, Ojukwu explained that such had not been established.
The APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, hoped that the police investigation would reveal the identities of those behind the raid.
It said, ‘‘The facts of the raid as available so far point to a sinister motive. For example, only Chief Oyegun’s room was ransacked in the whole house. Common sense dictates that if the invaders were robbers, they would have ransacked the whole house in search of money and other valuables which they might have believed were in the residence.
‘‘The invaders, two burly men, removed the window burglar bars to gain access to the residence from the back, and then made straight for the bedroom of our national chairman. Police security was in place at the residence when the incident happened.’’
The party said while it did not know who was behind the raid, the angry speeches and personality attacks that had been directed at the opposition by the leadership of the PDP and their spokesmen had heightened tension and put the lives of opposition politicians at risk.
The Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, Rotimi Amaechi, who first broke the news in Abuja, had lamented that “if Abuja which before now you could drive anywhere at any time you cannot be protected, we don’t know what is next.”
He told APC supporters during the inauguration of the party’s national campaign headquarters and the presidential campaign council, that “our chairman is not here because he was robbed last (Sunday) night.”
Amaechi, who is also the Rivers State Governor, said the February general elections represented the best opportunity for the opposition to clinch power at the federal level.
He said, “This is our best chance; they may never be another chance like this. We can’t afford to lose it; we cannot also afford to disagree on any issue.
“We must agree that President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP(Peoples Democratic Party) have had their cups filled by themselves and that the society wants them out.
“Fortunately for us, we have a good candidate (Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari).”
At the event, Buhari urged his supporters to shun violence and other acts capable of tarnishing APC’s image.
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