The victims of the daylight attack which took place on Monday at Dumez raid at Ivbiotor near Benin City were Pauly Okpere, and his brother, Pullen Okpere, who are social media reporters.
Eyewitnesses said about 20 youths led by a tax consultant, Bright Kokoma Aguebor led the attack which took the peaceful neighborhood unawares as such incidents were rare.
“Mr Aguebor came to ask store owners and market women to pay N12,000 from the market women in the community, and they said that such taxes were illegal as it is not the local government levy, rent or state taxes”.
It was gathered that, “The women some of who had paid later decided to go on protest. Kokoma ordered the thugs to beat up the women and seal up their shops. On the same day, the Okpere brothers who took pictures and videos of the incident put them on social media”.
Thinking that they were discharging their duty to their community, the video went viral and an embarrassed Kokoma who is not on any social media platform stormed the Okpere brothers’ offices and visited mayhem on them.
The thugs reportedly dragged out all they met inside the office and beat them to pulp. It was when both brothers fainted, bleeding from both eyes that the thugs left the scene.
Contacted, the state publicity secretary of the PDP Mr Chris Nehikhare said, “The thugs were clearly APC thugs because Kokoma is the APC security coordinator for the locality. The matter has been reported to the local police station, the commissioner of police and a petition has been sent to the IGP”.
He said he had it on good authority that Kokoma, who led the raid is currently on the run and has been declared wanted by the police while the brothers are on danger list admitted at an undisclosed hospital.
