The premises of the National Assembly and state assembly election tribunal in Lokoja, Kogi State, was turned into a war zone, on Wednesday, as supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) clashed.
The tribunal was hearing a petition filed by the candidate of the ACN in the House of Representatives’ election, Malik Taina, challenging the declaration of the PDP candidate, Tijani Damisa, as the winner of the election to represent Okene/Ogori federal constituency of the state.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that trouble started on Tuesday, when a supporter of one the party was insulting supporters of other party, a situation which led to a shouting match between both supporters, but was stopped before it could degenerate to a serious fight.
According to a source, before the tribunal began sitting on Wednesday, the judge asked all party supporters to go out of the court, due to Tuesday’s incident, as well as to maintain peace in the court room.
On getting outside, the source said the supporters began to rain abusive languages on each other, leading to fighting before the men of the State Security Service (SSS) intervened and avert a bloody clash.
The source added that the development made the men of the SSS to move all party supporters out of the court premises.
