A young woman in Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State, Miss Ogadinma Minnie Uchechi, has accused the council chairman, Eugene Chita Epelle, of directing a violent attack on her and her mother after she posted a video online showing the dilapidated condition of a public secondary school in her community. Uchechi said she had first approached the school principal and the Community Development Association chairman to raise concerns about the school’s state of disrepair, only to be told repeatedly that renovation was the responsibility of the state government. She then recorded and shared a video publicly, which quickly went viral and generated widespread attention.
According to Uchechi, who held a press conference on Wednesday 4 March to recount her experience, the council chairman visited her family home on Sunday 1 March and confronted her mother, accusing Uchechi of trying to damage his image online. Epelle then allegedly instructed his younger brother, Monday Chita Epelle, to physically assault her. Neighbours intervened to stop the attack, which Uchechi said would have been far worse without their intervention. The assault left both Uchechi and her mother injured. Epelle has denied leading thugs to the house, acknowledging only that he visited, that Uchechi was disrespectful, and that his brother pushed her — an act he said he did not endorse.
The incident has prompted demands for Epelle’s removal and prosecution from multiple civil society groups. The Youth Rights Campaign called the attack a dangerous escalation of political impunity and a direct assault on the democratic rights of citizens, and demanded the immediate arrest of Epelle and his brother, compensation for the victims, and the urgent renovation of the school. The Rivers State Response Team on Violence Against Women and Children also condemned the assault and called on the State Commissioner of Police to prosecute those responsible, criticising the security personnel present at the scene for failing to intervene.
The school at the centre of the controversy, located in Odioku community, was shown in Uchechi’s video to have broken classrooms, absent furniture, non-functional electricity, and a shortage of teachers. The Youth Rights Campaign noted that the crisis in public schools reflected not a lack of resources but the routine diversion of public funds by officials whose own children attend private schools or study abroad. The Rivers State Police Command had not issued a formal statement on the assault at the time of reporting.
