Ebonyi State Governor, M. David Umahi, has explained how the gun belonging to a soldier in his convoy got lost and was later recovered.
He also narrated the circumstances surrounding the loss of the gun, and denied ever threatening to kill anyone who took the gun.
A gun belonging to one of the soldiers attached to Umahi had gone missing when his convoy attempted to pass through the Onicha Local Government Area of the state last week.
Umahi disclosed this on Thursday at the Governor’s Lodge, Government House, Abakaliki, during a meeting with traders.
Umahi’s convoy was recently reported to have run into a roadblock at a wake at about 12p.m. and that one of the solders in his convoy had, in the course of inquiring what led to the roadblock, lost his gun.
Following this development, men of the Nigerian Army were said to have been stationed in the area, with the aim of recovering the missing gun.
“The trending report quoting me as having threatened to order the killing of anyone who blocked my convoy was a huge misrepresentation and was blown out of proportion by the media,” Umahi said.
“If they could do this to a governor, what could have happened if an ordinary man had been involved?”
He cautioned journalists in the state to approach their job with professionalism, saying, “SA on Media, talk to our Press. Anybody that wants to write rubbish should go out of this state and do that.
“How can somebody quote me that I said, ‘Block my convoy and get shot?’ It is this nonsense that set up war.
“Our system should be a system with law and order, and you don’t have the right to come and destroy people or a person because you have freedom of speech.
“It’s very good that they have found the gun. And I said that they didn’t block my convoy in Onicha.
“The soldiers even came out pleading with them to unblock the road and they refused.
“They were doing wake keep and drank themselves to a stupor that they didn’t recognise the Army.
“So, it was in the process that the soldiers moved and their gun fell down from the vehicle and they didn’t know.
“Nobody fought with the Army.
“Why I came hard on them was that if you were drunk and you didn’t recognise the soldiers, what if it were ordinary persons, what would have happened to them?”
