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Otti appeals for calm as protesting youths burn police vehicles over killings in Abia
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BY OUR REPORTER
A former gubernatorial candidate in Abia State Dr Alex Otti has appealed for calm as irate youths of Ohafia, a major town in the state, set police station and vehicles ablaze while protesting the killing of a citizen by the police.
One Friday Arunsi had been shot and killed on Friday by a policeman, at his shop in Ebem, Ohafia Local Government Area, following an argument.
According to a witness account, the late businessman and his uncle, Moses, were offloading a consignment of beverages from a truck at their store on Eni Njoku Street when some policemen accosted them, instructing that they stop. But they demanded from the policemen why they should stop.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the policemen threatened them and later walked away, only to return with a gun which they allegedly used to kill Arunsi.
However, things got out of control Saturday when a team of SARS operatives was deployed to Ohafia to quell a protest that had ensued following the Friday shooting. One Okoro Kalu, a barber was said to have been shot and wounded by a SARS operative.
The chain of events, according to the witness, involving Arunsi’s death and Kalu’s shooting made the youths to regroup and attack the Ohafia Police Station which they broke into and released inmates.
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They also attacked the Ebem Customary and Magistrate Courts alongside the police quarters, DPO’s residence and setting some vehicles in the compound on fire.
According to NAN, Arunsi’s death brings the number of Abia residents killed by security agents since the lockdown of Abia State over COVID-19 began on April 1 to five. Meanwhile, Abia is yet to record any case of coronavirus, ironically.
Otti, in a statement issued on his behalf by his media aide, Ferdinand Ekeoma, said he viewed the latest killing and others before it as vicious, humiliating, senseless and highly provocative.
He described the whole act of murdering harmless civilians as disgraceful and a clear manifestation of incompetence and unprofessionalism on the part of security agents who have wasted five innocent lives of promising youths in different parts of the state.
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He said: “Unlike what is obtainable in some parts of the country where youths are generally violent, majority of Abia youths are artisans and business men and women who go about their legitimate businesses very peacefully.
“The incessant killing of Abia youths has the propensity to ignite uncontrollable violence and general breakdown of law and order as witnessed in Ohafia LGA, where spontaneous protest and violence erupted following the death of the 17-year-old boy who was gruesomely murdered by a policeman.”
Otti said that since the Abia State police command had officially stated that the policemen, including the one that pulled the trigger that killed the boy were on an illegal operation and acted under the influence of alcohol, there was need for a decisive action to be taken against the culprits whose actions have brought sorrow and anguish to the young man’s family and community and the consequent violence visited on Ohafia as whole.
While commiserating with the families of all victims of recent extrajudicial killings in the state, he called on the Abia State Government to officially engage the national hierarchy of the security agencies to intervene in a bid to halt the ongoing senseless killing of innocent Abians.
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