Florence Uwaeme
Gunmen said to be herdsmen have killed Barr. Soalabo West, an ex-guber aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Rivers State.
Theportcitynews gathered that West was kidnapped penultimate weekend on his farm in Aluu, Ikwerre Local Government Area.
It was not immediately clear if the kidnappers demanded ransom.
Sources close to the family say his body was found on Wednesday night where it was dumped by the abductors.
West aspired to govern Rivers State in 2018 but conceded to the incumbent Nyesom Wike at the primaries.
While declaring his intentions to run in September 2018, he said: “The circumstances that threw up Wike in 2015 had been actualised with his emergence as governor in 2015 under PDP, and it is now the turn of riverine communities to produce the governor of Rivers State in 2019.
“The argument then was that Rivers was a PDP state and we needed to wrest the leadership of the state from the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party which the then incumbent governor Chibuike Amaechi, defected to in 2013.
“Governorship aspirants from riverine ethnic nationalities were asked to work with Wike, not because the Upland/Riverine dichotomy was not there, but essentially because of imperatives of the time.
“One, that Rivers State should go to the PDP, and second, that the state should be properly mobilised to deliver majority votes to former President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2019 presidential election.
“My appeal to our youths and all stakeholders now is to eschew violence and thuggery because, according to former President Goodluck Jonathan, nobody’s blood should be shed for anybody’s political ambition.”
The Rivers State Police Command did not immediately respond to enquiries for comments.
