LABOUR Party’s House of Representatives candidate for Lere Federal Constituency in Kaduna State, Suleiman Tambaya, on Friday night, escaped an assassination attempt as gunmen invaded his residence at Gure village in Lere Local Government Area of the state, killing two persons.
The incident, our correspondent gathered occurred at about 10:00 pm when the House of Representatives candidate was away at a political meeting in Kaduna, the state capital.
This is coming barely three months after gunmen killed the Party’s women leader, Mrs Victoria Chimtex, in her residence in the Kaura Local Government Area of the state in November 2022.
The hoodlums also shot Victoria’s husband in the leg and instantly rushed him to an undisclosed medical facility where he was said to be receiving treatment.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent on Saturday, Tambaya said that for divine intervention and the prompt response from the members of the community and local vigilante, it would have been a “different story by now.”
He also said the police in Lere responded to the distressed call.
Tambaya said, “I was planning to go home on Friday but I spoke to our governorship candidate and he asked me to come and see him. That was when I diverted and came to Kaduna.
“At about 10:00 pm on Friday, some seven armed men came to my house in the village (Gure), asking about my whereabouts and that they said I am supposed to be home.
“Some young men in my house were able to escape and raised an alarm; members of the community came and the vigilante too came out and confronted them. But unfortunately, in the process, gunmen killed two of our boys.
“You know the community has vigilante team and immediately they responded but in the process, the gunmen shot two of our boys. One of the boys died on the spot while the other one died at the hospital.
“We reported the case to the Divisional Police Officer and he promptly mobilise personnel to the scene of the incident.”
There was no official confirmation from the either state police command or the state government.
When contacted on the telephone, the state police command’s spokesman, DSP Mohammad Jalige, neither picked up nor responded to a text message sent to his mobile telephone.
