A new twist to the alleged shooting of a hotelier by suspected political hoodlums in Boji-Boji-Agbor, Ika South Local Council of Delta State over an alleged burning down of a campaign billboard has emerged.

The victim, Mr. Sunny Okonye, has clarified his statements which have been awashed in the media, saying that he was coerced to implicate Senator Ifeanyi Okowa and his aides, shortly after the incident in which he was shot at him several times with a pump action shot gun at close range by yet to be identified gunmen.

Okonye, still wearing bandages on his left arm, made the revelations on Sunday, June 29, 2014 at a press briefing in Asaba.

According to him, the caretaker committee chairman of Ika South, Engr. Andrew Obiazi, who took up the responsibility for his (Sunny Okonye) medical bills, including promises of funds, empowerment and other sundry gratification,
had approached him to falsify his oral and written statements at the police station.

He insisted that non of Okowa’s aides were present at the time of the incident but was forced to implicate Senator Ifeanyi Okowa in a bid to dent his political records ahead of the 2015 governorship elections in Delta state, in which he has indicated interest to contest.

He further explained that the council boss enjoined him to claim that his shooting was connected with an alleged burning down of Senator Okowa’s 2015 governorship campaign billboard at the College of Education junction in Agbor, adding that his earlier statements were made under coercion and promises of political and economic empowerment.

It could be recalled that friends of Senator Okowa had described the allegation as the handwork of mischief makers who have the penchant of maligning people, adding that it is an attempt to soil the name of the Senator because of the Senator’s gubernatorial ambition.