Former Justice Commissioner and Attorney-General of Edo State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Barrister Henry Idahagbon, has escaped an assassination attempt in Benin.
The assassination attempt came on the heels of a widely-publicized threat by Governor Godwin Obaseki on Wednesday to deal with a former governor and national chair of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who is widely believed to be the promoter of the APC group opposed to Obaseki’s re-election. Idahagbon is one of the arrowheads of the group.
Governor Obaseki had threatened in a video footage in the social media, and which was also reported by many online news portals and newspapers, that he would deal with Comrade Oshiomhole if he continued to “disrupt activities in the State and in the Edo chapter of the APC.”
On Thursday in Benin City, at about 2 pm, the No. 52b, Siluko Road Law office of Idahagbon, was attacked.
The attack was launched about the time a political meeting was scheduled to hold in the office.
Witnesses said that the gunmen riding in six Toyota Hilux trucks fired severally at the office, the venue of the meeting, shattering glasses of windows, damaging other valuable fixtures on the building and leaving bullet holes in the walls.
A restaurant on the premises was said to have been affected as some customers went face down in self-protection while some others scampered for safety.
No fatalities were recorded, according to reports from the scene of the attack.
Speaking on phone with some reporters from an undisclosed location after the attack, Idahagbon, thanked God for preserving his life.
According to him, “I have tried to reach the Commissioner of Police to inform him of the attack. But I have not been able to get through to him on telephone. I will certainly get across to the Police to formally report the attack.”
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