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, PREMIUM Times reports.
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.
“That information is false,” the police spokesperson in the state, Odiko MacDon, told PREMIUM Times on Wednesday.
“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,” 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 said.
The DPO said when he learnt of the shooting, he visited the area that night, in the company of the police area commander, adding that 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 contacted for his earlier comment and the police position on the matter, the senator’s media aide, Ekong, said: “What we know is that there were sporadic gunshots outside the gate of the senator’s house.”