The venue of today’s proposed governorship campaign rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has been attacked by suspected political thugs.

“In the wee hours of the morning of Saturday 24, 2015 at about 3:45 a.m. some armed youth started shooting at the venue of the APC governorship rally, National School field Okrika. Those setting up the sound system and the podium were forced to flee for their lives. At about 4am they started shooting explosives into the arena and destroyed the podium, sound equipment and some canopies,” APC Okrika party chairman, Christian Asifamaka, said in a statement he issued this morning.

Asifamaka said that the attackers came in a white Hiace bus and allegedly came in from Igbiri, a community that shares borders with Oba Ama, an Okrika community and hometown of Nigeria’s First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. He blamed the attack on “the PDP-led Federal Government.”

On his part, Abiye Amakiri, Director of Policy and Strategy of the Dakuku Peterside Governorship Campaign Organisation, said that fire was set to the stage and canopies “after men of the Nigeria Police Force drafted to protect the venue took to their heels following sporadic gun shots and dynamite explosions from several directions by several militants suspected to have been hired by the PDP, we believe at the instance of the First Lady, who was in town recently.

Amakiri added: “We believe the aim is to intimidate supporters of APC not to come out en masse for today’s rally in Okrika but this plan has failed already. We call on all our supporters to come out for the rally as protection is assured.”

News Express reports that APC’s Okrika Secretariat had previously been bombed by yet-to-be-identified persons.

•Photo shows destroyed venue of the APC governorship rally in Okrika, Rivers State.