*By David Uka, Abakaliki*
The gubernatorial candidate of All Progressive Congress, APC Ebonyi State, Sen. Sonni Ogbuoji has sympathized with the Ebonyi Catholic community over assault on a Catholic priest.
In his sympathy message sent to the Catholic Bishop of the Abakaliki Diocese, Bishop Mike Nnachi Okoro and the Ebonyi Catholic community, a copy made available to newsmen in Abakaliki by his media aide Ikenna Emewu, Ogbuorji condemned the assault on Rev. Fr. Matthew Orie.
He decried the manner people are being crushed in the state, alongside the heavy taxation the government of the state is imposing on residents of the state.
“I have on record complaints before the police that officials or better put, thugs of the government, have been junketing all over the city removing campaign posters of the opposition and some of our party members brutalized the same way as the priest”
The APC gubernatorial candidate charged Ebonyi people to stand against impunity and say no to torture, intimidation, heavy taxation and all sorts of anarchy from the present government of the state.
“I therefore urge Ebonyians to rise to the occasion and extricate themselves from this reign of impunity and usher in a new order and government that would respect and uphold their rights”.
Sen. Ogbuoji called on the police to bring the perpetrator to book.
“I therefore urge the State Commissioner of Police to ensure that the perpetrator of this brutality is arrested and adequately punished in line with the law to serve as deterrent to hundreds of other brutes working at the behest of the state government for a safer Ebonyi”he said
Rev. Fr. Orie was reported to have been beaten up by a Revenue agent of Ebonyi State Government at Abakaliki Rice Mill when he refused to pay a settlement fee of N500 requested by the agent amidst paying the required revenue fees of the mill.