Pandemonium broke out on Sunday during a thanksgiving service at the Akume Atongo stadium in Kastina-Ala local government area of Benue State when angry supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stripped a chieftain of the party naked for distributing handbills of Samuel Ortom, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was a birthday celebration and thanksgiving service organised by the special adviser to the governor on local government and chieftaincy affairs, Solomon Wombo to mark his 50th birthday.
Governor Gabriel Suswam and other bigwigs of the PDP attended the well lavished ceremony.
The striped PDP chieftain, identified as Akor Ikyegh is a youth leader in Ushongo LGA of the state.
He is a personal aide to Prof. Daniel Iornem, a member of the Suswam campaign organisation.
Recall that there is serious tension in the state since the ruling PDP lost the presidential election to the leading opposition APC. Many PDP chieftains are making plans to defect while others are still pretending about it.
However, trouble started at Katsina-Ala, venue of the birthday celebration when a teenager was caught in the arena by PDP supporters, distributing handbills with Ortom’s message titled, “Rotation of governorship position among Benue churches: The time for the Pentecostal.”
Angered by the situation, the party supporters beat the distributor of the handbill mercilessly before he revealed that it was Akor, the PDP chieftain who was dressed in PDP attire, that sent him.
It was further gathered that the PDP chieftain is a relation to the wife of the celebrant.
Confusion erupted in the place when the visibly infuriated party supporters held the PDP chieftain, beat him to stupor before finally stripping him naked.
One of the party supporters pulled a gun and was about to shoot when the police and men of the vigilante group quickly intervened and whisked the man away in a patrol vehicle.
