The Nigeria Police Force yesterday dismissed the police corporal, Samuel Ojana, who shot and killed a bus driver in the commercial city of Onitsha, for allegedly refusing to give him N20, which resulted in the violent protest in the city. This came on the heels of the insistence by prominent Igbo leaders on the removal of all police checkpoints in the South East.
Following the crisis that almost assumed an ethnic coloration, the Commissioner of Police in charge of Anambra, Ibrahim Muktari, and other senior police officers in the command relocated to Onitsha to personally monitor the security situation and build confidence in the residents, especially the Hausa community.
The suspect, who hails from Agila in Benue State, was attached to the Police Mobile Force, PMF 52, Onitsha, is currently standing trial for the shooting of one Mr. Edwin Eze from Nachi in Enugu State.
He was arraigned before an Onitsha Magistrate Court, presided over by Ngozi Okoye who remanded him in prison custody on the ground that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case.
According to Mr. Ibrahim, the action was necessitated to bring sanity into the force and convince the public that the police do not condone indiscipline and recklessness.
“As you can see, the suspect has been dismissed and arraigned after an orderly room trial. This shows that the police do not shield anyone that goes contrary to the law. It was a mistake; it could happen to anybody but that is not enough reason to say that he should not be punished for the offence committed”, he said.
The police boss also debunked the insinuation that the suspect was an Hausa Moslem, which actually infuriated the of youths in the area yesterday.
He stated that “a policeman is a policeman no matter where he comes from or his religion. So it was all wrong information that sparked the anger of the natives”.
He, however, maintained that peace had returned to the city, urging the residents and the Hausa community that fled to neighboring Asaba, the Delta State capital to return to their places of business, assuring that the police was on top the situation.
Meanwhile, there was a renewed call by the leader of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazurike and other Igbo leaders for the immediate dismantling of all police checkpoints in the zone.
Speaking through his second in command, Chief Rommy Ezeonwuka and MASSOB’s Director of Information, Uchenna Madu, the igbo leader, called on the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to remove all roadblocks and replace them with police surveillance and patrol teams. He lamented that in the last one year, a large number of Ndigbo have been killed in cold blood by trigger happy policemen at checkpoints.
“The ideas of police checkpoints are primitive and ineffective. Everyday we have reports of people shot because of money and the extortion. The embarrassment suffered by people in the hands of these policemen is killing the economy of the South East. A situation where you have over 30 checkpoints from Onitsha to Awka, the state capital, a distance of about 20 kilometers is unacceptable”, he opined.
Condemning the killing of the driver by a police corporal, the Anambra State chapter of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), called on the IG to ensure that the perpetrator of the heinous crime doest not escape but made to face the music to serve as deterrent to others.
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