There was no attack on Akpabio’s house – Police

Senator Akpabio addressing reporters at the Akwa Ibom International Airport, Uyo

The police in Akwa Ibom state said there was no attack on the country home of a senator, Godswill Akpabio, as claimed by the senator’s aide.

Mr Akpabio’s media aide, Anietie Ekong, said earlier that some unknown gunmen stormed the senator’s home in Ukana Ikot Ntuen, Essien Udim, Akwa Ibom state, around 7.30 p.m on Tuesday, and were shooting sporadically in front of the gate before they were repelled by police officers and other security personnel attached to the senator.

The senator was holding a political meeting in his home when the incident happened, Mr Ekong told PREMIUM TIMES.

“That information is false,” the police spokesperson in the state, Odiko MacDon, told PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday morning.

“There was an attempted robbery at a filling station close to Senator Akpabio’s house. The filling station is 200 metres away from the senator’s house.

“Nobody attacked the country home of Senator Godswill Akpabio,” Mr MacDon, a deputy superintendent of police, said.

The divisional police officer (DPO) in Essien Udim corroborated Mr MacDon’s position that the shooting was at a filling station, and not the senator’s house.

“There were some policemen on the ground at the filling station, so when the armed robbers started shooting, the policemen there fired back, and the robbers ran away,” the DPO told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Udim said when he learnt of the shooting, he visited the area that night, in the company of the police area commander.

He said he and his officers stopped by the senator’s house that night, and the gate was locked.

“We stayed around there till late into the night before we left,” he said.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted the senator’s media aide, Mr Ekong, for his comment on the police position on the matter, he said: “What we know is that there were sporadic gunshots outside the gate of the senator’s house.”

Mr Akpabio, the immediate past governor of Akwa Ibom recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress.