While Bassey Edet Otu awaits him at the senatorial polls for the CR Southern Senatorial seat, it appears the PDP candidate for the position, Gershom Bassey, has shot himself in the foot with the arrests all through last week of 23, mostly PDP faithfuls, in circumstances believed to have been tied more to the forthcoming polls than the recent attack that took place in his house, www.calitown.com can report.
The arrests whose major culprits included the PDP State Vice-chairman, South, Orok Iban, the Leader of Calabar South Legislature, Rowland Effiong, the councillor representing Ward 11, among others, may have also been set up to ruffle what one source refers to as “Prince Otu’s supporters considering that the man knows it will not be a stroll in the park for him in the elections”. Police sources who confirmed the arrests to www.calitown.com, added that they were only acting on the strength of a petition sent to “us about the people on the list and we went ahead to demand they put up an appearance, which most of them did”. It was further discovered that those who reported at the Diamond Hill headquarters office in Calabar, were later accompanied with a search warrant to their respective houses. “The police say they were looking for arms, ammunitions and other offensive weapons…”, as one of those arrested said.
“See, Gershom Bassey and I go to the same church (Duke Town Presbytarian Church), he has never called us to say he is running for any position, now that Prince Otu has come and we have given him our word, he has taken offence and is resorting to these kind of tactics that will only guarantee that he will fail in the election. He knows we have no guns or weapons in our houses, but wants us intimidated, he has picked the wrong persons I can tell you, it will be fight to finish”, one of those arrested submitted.
