A former Local Government chairman of Ushongu Local Government Area in Benue State, Asawa Joe, has said that he was physically assaulted for wearing up at Governor an Atiku-branded shirt at Governor Samuel Ortom’s senatorial rally on Tuesday.
This claim was made in a video shared by Vershima Aondoakaa, on his Facebook page on Tuesday.
Narrating his experience, Asawa said, “I was given the beating of my life at this PDP zonal campaign rally and we are not known for violence which is marking the flag-off of our governor’s senatorial campaign rally. So we got the information that the governor would flag-off his campaign in Gboko today. I am a member of Atiku grassroot movement in Benue State and when we got this information we felt that this is a PDP function and it is an opportunity for us to come and showcase the might of PDP in Gboko. So we mobilised our members because we got the information that various PDP associations are going to be here and we sensitised our people and we brought them here. So we went in.
When I came here, I entered inside and went to exchange pleasantries with the high table because I’m immediate past chairman Ushongu Local Government and I am deeply involved in this PDP activities and we are told that in Benue, PDP is from bottom to top and that is the message our PDP national chairman has been preaching and that is the message that the governor himself has been preaching and all of a sudden we came here with the belief that we are going to make PDP proud. When we came here little did we know and I did not even have a foresight that there is a change of message with attitude.
“Those who approached me said who sent me here and who asked me to put on this shirt. This is the shirt that they beat and torn(sic) away and they said haven’t I got the instruction that they did not want to see anything like PDP here. That is what I heard from them, they started descending on me, beating me with irons, their legs, their hands, boxing me left and right.
There were over 50 people punching me, it was one youth leader in Gboko here, Shawa Uge, that is the man who saved my life.”
