A 2019 governorship candidate in Imo State, Uche Nwosu, on Tuesday, said his arrest on Sunday at St Peter’s Anglican Church Eziama Obaire in the Nkwerre Local Government Area of the state was sanctioned by the state sovernor, Hope Uzodinma.

But the state government has since refuted Nwosu’s allegations that Uzodinma had a hand in his arrest by the police.

Nwosu, a son-in-law to a former governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha, who spoke to journalists in Owerri, said the plan was to assassinate him.

The politician, who chronicled how he was arrested in church, taken to Enugu airport and boarded a charted aircraft to Abuja, said that the governor used his Chief Security officer and other security operatives attached to the state government house to arrest, humiliate and possibly eliminate away.

He said he was stripped half-naked, and handcuffed on the orders of the state governor.

The former governorship candidate said that he had no hands in the insecurity rocking the state, saying that an unnamed young man, who accused him in a viral video of giving him money to escalate insecurity in the state was “dressed in the state government house” and asked to implicate him.

Nwosu advised Uzodinma to eschew bitterness and concentrate more on governance than politics.

He said that those who arrested him, invaded the church, jumped to the altar, disrupted sermons and shot indiscriminately in the church.

Saying that the order was to kill him, Nwosu who buttress his point in an emotional laden voice, said that those who “abducted me were masked, hijacked me in church and manhandled him, ordered me to lie on the floor in the vehicle and one of them rested one of his legs on my head.”

Nwosu said, “While the sermon was ongoing, I saw some military people who came in. I asked my boys to go and welcome them because I thought they escorted a VIP to the church to condole with me over the death of my mother.

“All of a sudden, over 15 masked security operatives jumped into the church. While some rushed to the altar, some came to where I was sitting and ordered me to move or they move me. They started shooting and disrupted sermon that was ongoing.

“I demanded to know what was going on but they said they had an instruction to bring me. They manhandled me and bundled me into one of the vehicles they came in. One of them ordered me to lie down and one of them placed his leg on my head.”

“When they drove off, they started making calls in Hausa language and unknown to them I understand the Hausa language.”

But the state government refuted Nwosu’s allegations that Uzodinma had a hand in his arrest by the police.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, in a statement, stated, “This is a malicious concoction, that can only be made up by a drowning man. It is pitiable that rather than go into a sobering reflection on his arrest, Nwosu, upon his release on bail, was in a hurry to allege without any proof that his arrest was masterminded by Imo State Government.”

Meanwhile, the Indigenous People of Biafra has said those who ‘abducted’ Nwosu had been exposed as the masterminds of insecurity and other crises rocking the state. (The PUNCH)

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