Eighty-seven year-old Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) woman leader in the defunct Bendel State and mother of an Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Madam Grace Osaretin, was murdered, Tuesday night in Benin City.
This came just as the Edo State PDP chairman, Chief Dan Orbih called on the state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, to convey a security summit to address what he described as the increasing insecurity in the state.
Nigerian Tribune learnt on Wednesday, at the Benin City residence of Mr. Martin Osakue, the PDP chieftain and proprietor of Benin-City based Paragon Group of Schools that Madam Osaretin, his mother, was killed around 8 p.m on Tuesday.
The gunmen reportedly entered the deceased’s residence at Uwasota, a suburb of Benin City and enquired from the woman if she was the mother of Mr. Osakue.
When the woman answered in the affirmative, the yet-to-be identified gunmen were said to have shot her many times before leaving the house..
Mr. Osakue confirmed the development when the state PDP chairman and some of the state PDP leaders paid him a condolence visit and said even when no conclusions had been drawn yet, he wondered why some armed people would enter his mother’s house and killed her after she responded to their enquiry that she was his mother.
Chief Orbih, who advocated the conveyance of a security summit for all political parties and stakeholders in the state at a rally on Wednesday, in Ekpoma, where Chief Don Ehijiator, former Chief of Staff to Governor Oshiomhole and hundreds of his supporters defected to the PDP from the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) challenged security agencies to swing into action with a view to fishing out the killers of Madam Osaretin.
According to Orbih, the killing was a reflection of the level of insecurity in the state, which he claimed had long being compromised, adding that “Apart from total breakdown of law and order, there is breakdown of governance.”
The PDP chairman said this was the time to reject the ACN led government in Edo, pointing out that people were frustrated with the bad state of affairs brought about by the ACN administration.
