Kogi Poll: Masked Gunmen In Police Uniform Attack Makinde’s Hotel In Lokoja

Masked gunmen reported dressed in police uniform on Friday allegedly opened fire at a hotel where the Governor of Oyo State, Engineer Seyi Makinde, lodged in Lokoja, Kogi State in preparation of the November 16, governorship election in the state.

The afternoon attack came a day after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) taunted APC leaders including Governor Nasir el-Rufai; Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, APC national chairman; wife of the president, Hajia Aisha Buhari and others for campaigning for Governor Yahaya Bello, whom the party said had no single achievement to point at in four years.

Makinde is the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Kogi state Campaign Council.

He is in Kogi in his capacity as the Chairman of that Council.

According to eyewitnesses who confirmed this report, the hooded security operatives arrived the Suitorial Hotels, Lokoja, along Stadium Road, where the Governor and some members of the PDP Campaign Council were lodged at about 12:50 p.m., shooting sporadically.

Some of the hooded security operatives scaled the fence of the hotel and attempted to gain entrance into the main hotel, witnesses said.

But a number of security operatives attached to the Governor and some residents of nearby buildings, however, resisted the security operatives, thereby causing a melee.

Sources said that the hooded Policemen came in about 100 vehicles and were said to have been led by the officer-in-charge of one of the Arms of the Nigerian Police Force in Kogi State.

An eyewitness at the scene of the incident said: “They came fully armed and hooded.

“Some of them scaled the fence of the Hotel and made to enter the Hotel proper. But pandemonium ensued, as there was commotion between security operatives attached to the Governor and the invaders.

“However, some residents in the neighbourhood of the Hotel soon mobilised and joined the Governor’s security to resist the invaders”, the source said.