Danladi Umar, Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), has insisted that an “aggressive mob” who attempted to attack him in Abuja hurled “secessionist and sectional slogans”.
The embattled Umar said this in an interview on the incident involving him and a mob at a popular plaza in Abuja.
The use of the term had attracted condemnation from various quarters, with many Nigerians asking that he (Umar) be probed.
But the CCT Chairman maintained that the mob chanted sectional slogans at him.
“As part of my routine activities outside the office and official duties, like any regular Nigerian, I always drive myself and move around freely to places of worship, markets and gyms, among others, without any paraphernalia of office.
“I enjoy such freedom being a believer that one day one would leave whatever office one occupies and returning to living the normal life.
“Therefore, when I was accosted by the plaza guard in a very rude manner on arriving there, I had maintained my accustomed decorum before I was drawn into an unnecessary altercation and subsequently assaulted, with this degenerating into an attack and injury by a mob that was chanting secessionist and sectional slogans,” Umar told PRNigeria.
The CCT chairman wondered why the viral video of the incident did not capture where he was being assaulted, saying that he was “traumatised after being bruised and treated in the hospital”.
He said: “This makes me both upset at being cast in a distorted and unfortunate light, while I also have cause to feel deep pains for subsequent response and controversies.
“All said, with an apology tendered to me by one of the suspected aggressors, I believe that the entire incident was avoidable, just as I feel highly disappointed that my action in the public glare in a very brief moment has been misconstrued in the narrative floating across social media.”
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