The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, on Sunday escaped mob attack at a meeting of the All Progressives Congress in a hotel in Awka, Anambra State.
The angry mob accused him of manipulating the results of the party ward congress held on Saturday in the state.
Mr. Ngige was whisked away by security agencies when heavy gunshots were fired at the scene of the meeting.
Security personnel were said to have repeatedly fired repelling shorts into the air to scare the mob.
It is understood that the meeting was for the harmonisation of the results of the party’s ward congress.
While the minister escaped unhurt, a member of the state’s ward congress committee, who was identified as Ali, was beaten to a pulp and stripped naked on allegations that he was among those drafted in the state to work for Ngige.
The candidate of the APC in the 2017 governorship election in Anambra, Dr Tony Nwoye, had openly accused Ngige in the meeting of plotting to hijack the party in the state.
In the harmonisation meeting, Nwoye reportedly told Ngige that he was usurping the functions of the Congress Committee by asserting that ward congress took place on Saturday in the state while it did not.
Nwoye said, “Some of you here worked against me during that election, but my joy is that I lost the election and you lost too because most of you have not risen beyond the falling point.”
The APC ward congresses across the country on Saturday were generally marred by violence and fraud.
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