Charles Eruka, Channels TV Staff Who Was Stabbed At APC Rally Tells His Story

Channels TV’s Senior Correspondent, Charles Erukaa, on Wednesday narrated his ordeal during the disrupted All Progressives Congress (APC) rally in Okrika, Rivers State, where he was stabbed with a broken bottle after reporting the incident.







“Initially I got the impression that jubilant supporters were lighting off fire works. But when the sound of the gunfire increased in intensity, that is where we realised that this was risky business.



“The police told those of us that were caught up in the middle of the rally ground to lay on the floor”, he said, adding that “I crawled up to the cameraman, who had been conducting interviews with me, and told him lets just give the people a feel of what is going on in the place and that is how we were able to capture the stampede that occurred when the gun fire came”.



Mr Erukaa, while speaking via phone on Sunrise Daily, further noted that “it was after the police had evacuated the venue that the hoodlums and thugs now descended on the arena”.



He also confirmed the death of “one policeman and an injured DSS official”, revealing that ‘”there were also reports of other people killed during the gun battle, but the casualty figure at this moment cannot be confirmed.



“The police were able to secure the environment where the rally had taken place, probably to either take on the attackers if they appeared, or to prevent looters from carting away the property of people who owned the Public Address System (PAS) and other media houses that abandoned their property because they had to flee for dear lives”, he said.



He said the attackers came through the creeks, sneaked to the venue of the rally and set up the explosions, adding that “some of the buildings near the venue of the rally were set on fire, either by the use of petrol or the effect of the explosions”.



Sporadic gunshot in Okrika on Tuesday disrupted the APC governorship rally at the National Secondary School, in Rivers State.



Shooters were unseen and no one could tell from which direction the gunfire was coming but it appeared to be from all around the venue of the APC rally.



The Benue-born journalist reported the incident live from the venue of the rally.







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