An explosion suspected to be a bomb blast has rocked the secretariat of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) along Warri Street,Umuahia, Abia State resulting in an inferno, which could have consumed the entire building but for the intervention of petty traders who broke the gate of the facility to put out the raging fire.

The fire was said to have started when an unknown assailant threw two four-litre paint containers into the premises of the building. The containers were said to have gone off with a deafening explosion.

Abia PPA Chairman, Prince Emeka Okafor, told newsmen that Abia State Government and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)masterminded the explosion.

Okafor, who spoke to journalists on the development in his office yesterday, said the incident was not the first in his party’s secretariat.

He alleged that the first timethe office was attacked, PPA’s personnel were attacked and property worth millions of naira destroyed.

Said the Abia PPA Chairman: “We suspect our landlord, the Abia State Government and PDP; they destroyed our party office in Umuokpara, we reported the matter to the police and nothing happened. They went about the city of Umuahia saying PPA was dead; they even placed a coffin at the secretariat. They have destroyed our posters and billboards in Aba.

“We don’t know what we have done to Abia State Government, yet it was our party that produced the incumbent governor; they are sending death threats to us daily but I am happy they are not gods. The fact that we are peaceful does not mean we are cowards.

“They should remember that there is freedom of association, worship and expression, they are trying to show that they are lawless and tyrants while claiming to be democrats.”

•Adapted from a Daily Sun report. Photo shows a bombed house.