By Osas Lucky
A man, identified as Happy Ekhator narrowly escaped death recently in Gombe State, North East Nigeria, following a crisis that broke out over selection of the stool of a traditional ruler, Mai Tangale in Billiri Local Government Area of the state.
Our correspondent gathered that trouble started for Ekhator in December 2014 and January 2015, during a build up to the 2015 presidential election campaign in which President Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari were the leading contenders.
It was gathered that Happy Ekhator, who hailed from Ugo Village in Edo State South-South Nigeria was a strong member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with a strong followership and influence in Ikpoba Ohka Local Government Area, especially in ward 5 and environ.
Following his strong influence, members of the All Progressive Congress in the local government were worried that they may lose to PDP; hence they allegedly asked Ekhator to defect from PDP to their party and if he refuse, they will eliminate him.
Our correspondent gathered that when the threat was too much for Happy Ekhator to handle, he ran to Gombe State to start a new life.
According to sources, while at Gombe, he was doing teaching job to earn a living, but unfortunately again, another trouble brew out as crisis broke out when the people in the area he lives wanted to select new Mai Tangale which was vacant.
The crisis was attributed to high level of disagreement between the Muslims and Christians in the area. The Christian in the area think the next Mai Tangale should be Christian, but the Muslim disagreed.
Source said the matter eventually snowballed to a big religious crisis as worship centres, houses and shops were burnt down. Four persons were also reportedly died in the process.
However, through the help of God, Ekhator was said to have escaped at night from Gombe and ran to an unidentified village in Edo State, but to avoid being hunted again by his political opposition in Ikpoba Ohka Local Government Area, Ekator was said to have since ran away to an unknown destination.
As of press time, no one knows exactly where Ekhator is.
