The lawmaker representing Afikpo south west at the Ebonyi State House of Assembly (EBHA) Mr Nkemka Okoro Onuma, a commissioner nominee Mr. Stanley Okoro Emegha and their aides on Tuesday attacked journalists who came to cover proceeding of the Assembly.
The journalists – correspondents of Nation Newspaper Ogochukwu Anioke, Sampson Nwafor of Pilot Newspaper who is also the Secretary of Correspondent chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Ebonyi state Council and some others were attacked within the premises of the State House of Assembly where they were wounded and lost their working gadgets.
After attacking the Journalist, the thugs also held Mr Anioke who decided to leave the premises hostage for about five minutes by ordering the gate man to lock the gate when he made moves to drive out of the house.
The incident happened after the commissioner nominee was screened by the Assembly.
Blueprint Correspondent reports that the screening of the commissioner-designate was engrossed with some irregularities.
The Speaker of the House Francis Nwifuru personally observed that his year of graduation from Primary School did not tally with the year he started secondary school based on the documents he submitted.
Nwifuru had asked him to explain how he started secondary school a
year before the year he graduated from primary school as stated in his
result, but he couldn’t give any reasonable answer to the query from
the lawmakers
Speaking thereafter, the Nation reporter narrated that he witnessed one of the State Assembly member Nkemka and Journalists engaged in intense argument.
He said, “As the lawmaker was shouting, his boys joined him and attacked one of the journalists and hit him very hard on his chest and he fell down.
“At this point I intervened. The noise also attracted some Police Officers working in the Assembly who came and helped to restore calm. Later, commissioner-nominee came and pleaded with the journalists to forgive the lawmaker and the thugs who attacked them.”
