A middle aged woman was Saturday, April 30, 2016, shot dead by soldiers in Warri, Delta State, during the monthly environmental sanitation exercise, just as the Sun Newspaper correspondent in Warri, Mr. Emmanuel Ogoigbe, was seriously brutalized, tortured and given the beaten of his life by the military.
It was learnt that the woman allegedly felled by the soldier’s bullet at about 8:00a.m was a bride’s mother who was said to be on her way for the wedding ceremony.
Investigation revealed that the woman whose daughter was billed to get married in the oil city on Saturday was shot from behind by one of the soldiers monitoring the environmental sanitation exercise to ensure compliance.
It was learnt that the victim with her little baby were inside the tri-cycle popularly known as keke when the soldier aimed at the passengers in the keke and the bullet immediately pierced through the woman from behind and fired her stomach. She was said to have died immediately.
Sensing danger, the Sun Newspaper correspondent quickly alerted the army commander, Major Azanku who immediately deployed a team of soldiers to quell the perceived uprising as tension was building up to save a possible breakdown of law and order.
But, Ogoigbe was to later get the beating of his life when some soldiers who perhaps were not aware of the impending danger at the army check point were equally informed of the build up at the junction.
The army team led by one staff sergeant O. Joseph, got infuriated for informing him of the situation rather he threw Ogoigbe on the bare ground and asked him to roll on the ground.
“I was asked to jump into the dirty three inches gutter filled with reptiles and other dangerous species. It took the intervention of a fellow soldier and scores of sympathizers to plead for my release after thirty minutes of torture.
“He hit me with the butt of the gun, kicked me severally as if that was not enough a neighbor who just waved at me, expressing sympathy was questioned for ten minutes while Sgt. Joseph continued calling me a criminal and also took my photograph.
“That was the first time I was beaten by somebody like that since I was born. I have never received beaten like that before. I told him I am older than him, I’m above 57 years but the soldier did not give ear to anything that I said,” Ogoigbe, the Sun reporter, said.
First born of the deceased, Alero, said the keke rider did not stop when he was flagged down by the soldiers which resulted to the killing of her mother.
She said that was not enough for one of the soldiers to release bullets on her mother.
Alero, who was speaking from Ekpan Police Station where the case has been reported, said the killer-soldier has been whisked away by members of the JTF contrary to reports that he has been arrested.
According to Alero, colleagues of the killer-soldier at the roadblock where the incident happened have taken him to Warri Area Command for interrogation.
“They have not arrested the soldier. JTF whisked him away. His colleagues that they were at the road-block together are now at Warri Area Command.
“It was my mom that was shot, not my sister that is wedding today. She was coming from the wedding,” she said incoherently.
It could not be ascertained from the commanding officer of 3 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Effurun, Major Azanku, if the soldier involved in the dastardly act was deployed from his base as his GSM provider said his phone was switched off.
Meanwhile, Delta State’s police public relations officer, DSP Celestina Kalu, has confirmed the killing.
Kalu said police operatives were currently investigating the dastardly act, adding that there were procedures in arresting an erring soldier if he is not voluntarily handed over by the army.
She added that the daughter of the deceased had reported to the Ekpan Police Station that her mother was felled by a soldier bullet at Jakpa Junction in Warri.
She said the corpse of the deceased woman was brought to the station by some soldiers and the police have deposited the corpse in a mortuary.
