Don't take us back to the state of insecurity - Chief Chris Nkwonta

The senatorial candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Abia South, Chief Chris Nkwonta, has warned his Peoples Democratic Party counterpart, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, not to allow his personal ambition to lead the state back to the era of insecurity in the zone.

For the better part of 2009 and 2011, Abia South was literally besieged by kidnappers until they were flushed out by the military, which restored security to the zone previously known as the ‘kidnap capital of Nigeria.’

In a release, Nkwonta alleged that thugs suspected to be loyalists of Abaribe attacked him at the Apostolic Christian Church Mission, Abayi, where he was invited as special guest for the women’s Mothering Sunday last week.

He accused Abaribe of reviving and patronising ex-hoodlums in the zone to intimidate his perceived opponents in his desperation to return to the Senate.

“ I want to remind Abaribe that no individual has the monopoly of violence and he should not allow his personal ambition to drag us back to the dark days of kidnapping and other criminal activities that held the zone bound for years,” he warned.

The APGA candidate, in a press release made available in Umuahia, said, “It is on record that Senator Abaribe, on Saturday March 13, 2015, at a PDP meeting hosted at the residence of former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, boasted that, ‘all the radicals in Obingwa have been assembled and settled for the task ahead’.