Thursday 9 February 2012

Police Kills driver in Onitsha over N50

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Protest sparked off in
Onitsha, the commercial city of Anambra
State Thursday, over the killing of a
commercial bus driver simply identified as
Edwin by a trigger happy policeman for failing to part with N50 tip. According to the conductor of the bus, Samuel
Ekwueme who was crying uncontrollably, the
police, at Anambra State Broadcasting Service
(ABS) Awka Road Onitsha junction check point,
had stopped the Coaster bus driver with
registration number AA 763 AHB and asked for N50 tip, but the driver gave him the normal
N20. The policeman said to be a Hausa man refused
and insisted on collecting N50, but was told by
the driver that they just came out and that
they should allow them to go and come back. The conductor said: “The policemen insisted
that we must give them N50 before we move.
The driver, after pleading with the unyielding
policemen, drove off and one of them entered
a commercial motorcycle and accosted us at
Anionwu street by New Market Road Onitsha where he shot the driver through the bus window and ordered the commercial
motorcyclist carrying him to move for him to escape.” The killing of the driver exploded the bottled
up anger of residents of Onitsha and the fragile peace in the state that have lost over 30 people to the bombing and shooting of the Boko Haram as residents took to the streets in protest of the killing of the bus driver said to be member of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra
(MASSOB). It was gathered that four passenger in the bus sustained bullet wounds while others in an
attempt to escape sustained serious injuries
when the bus became uncontrollable following
the shooting of the driver by the trigger-happy cop.

The situation however took a dangerous turn
when angry mob comprising of drivers and
commercial motorcyclist popularly known as
‘okada riders’ went on rampage with the
corpse of the driver, for reprisal attack on
Hausas people in Onitsha. The bus was said to be fully loaded with
passengers who took off from Nkpor junction
and was heading to the Ose Okwodu and
Onitsha Main Market, when the incident
happened. One of the passengers who gave her name as
Ifeoma Obi told Vanguard that “the deceased
did not do anything that warranted his
killing, adding it was just sheer wickedness on
the side of the policeman who because of just
N50 wasted this young man’s life” She also said that when the policeman first
demobilized the bus by shooting at the tires of
the vehicle and it could not move again, a
situation she said helped the killer cop to shoot
at the deceased from the window on closed
range after shattering the glass of the vehicle. The killing took an ethnic sentiment as
Coaster drivers and angry mob in Onitsha
went on rampage demanding the killing of
Hausa people on the ground that the
policeman who shot the deceased was a Hausa.

Source: Vanguard News.

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