Policemen from the Ndiegoro Division of the Nigerian Police, Abia state Command, on Friday beat up the General Manager of the Abia State Road Maintenance Agency (ABROMA), Engr. Ndukwe Orji Agu and some of his workers who were on rehabilitation works between Tenant and Market roads section of Aba.
In an interview with 247ureports.com, Agu said his team was carrying out rehabilitation works on failed portion of roads in the area when they were attacked by a team of four policemen who destroyed the diversion signs they placed on road.
The General Manager lamented that he is still shocked over the incident as policemen who are supposed to protect him and workers, rather inflicted deep machete cuts on them.
“I’m still shocked that some policemen can become a terror to innocent government officials doing their legitimate work. As I’m speaking to you now, one of my staff is lying critically in hospital from machete cuts he received from the police team. They didn’t even allow us ti identify ourselves, is that how the police are supposed to work? We have been doing road rehabilitation works around major roads in Aba since a week now, we mounted our diversion sign to enable road users divert to other roads. As soon as we settled down to work, a yellow bus started removing the diversion sign from the other end. Before we knew what was happening, a policeman alighted from the bus with a machete and told me and my workers that we are under arrest. I identified myself as the General Manager of ABROMA, but that annoyed him he used the machete on my back and two of my workers who are still in hospital. Three others policemen also came out pointing their guns at us. You can see the deep cuts i sustained.
“They chased some of my workers threatening to shoot them if they don’t stop running. They later took us to the Ndiegoro police station and forced us to remove our clothes and were about to detain us. Nobody even told us the offence we committed, the DPO threatened to deal with us. We were informed that the Area Commander ordered them to bring everybody to his office. When we got to the Area Commander’s office, we discovered that the so called policeman who used a machete on us was a fake policeman, but he was wearing police jacket in the company of three policemen, but the DPO as well as the team leader known as Eugene introduced him, Ikechukwu Ifeanyi as a policeman at the Ndiegoro police station. The Area Commander was furious with them on why they should attack government officials doing their work. The fake policeman is being detained at the Area Command.
Engr. Agu commended the Aba Area Commander of the Nigerian Police, ACP Rabiu Dayi for his intervention, stressing that him a shining police.
A source who witnessed the incident said shop owners fled the area as the policemen were brandishing their guns and machete, threatening to shoot anybody who challenged them.
247ureports.com gathered that as at the time of this report, one of the workers who got a deep cut from the incident, Enyinnaya Ndukwe is being feared dead as he is receiving medication at an undisclosed hospital in the city.
Efforts to get the reactions of the DPO, Ndiegoro Division, Mr. Creascent Mamah or the spokesman of the Abia state police Command, Geoffrey Ogbonna were unsuccessful as at the time of filing this report.
