Tragedy struck at the ‘Orji Uzor Kalu Bridge’ area of Ngwa road in Aba, Abia state on Friday, when members of the Abia state Vigilante services popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’, invaded a hard drug spot and shot dead a young man, known as Sunny Pound, and wounded about 9 others for failing to ‘settle them.’
247ureports.com gathered that the hard drug dealers in Aba who relocated to the Orji Uzor Kalu Bridge area after the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency; NDLEA sacked them from their former base at the notorious York Street, usually pay daily ‘settlement fee’ to some security agencies who throng the area.
A source at the hard drug spot told our correspondent that they were relaxing inside an open shed at about mid day when some Bakassi Boys stormed the area in their patrol van and demanded for ‘settlement fee’ of N1,000 which each of the over seven hard drug dealers operating in the area pay them.
According to the source,” When we told them that there was no money, they became annoyed and barked at us. One of them used his machete to flog one of us and asked us not to waste their time before they deal with us.”
He said that the Vigilante men became violent when the late Sunny Pounds who hails from Imo state asked them to stop beating the young man because he was sick. They pounced on him for daring to challenge their authority and as the young man attempted to run away, one of the invaders shot and he died before he could be taken to the hospital.
When the Bakassi Boys saw that the boy has died, they dashed into their van and fled the area. A group of sympathizers summed courage and took Sunny Pounds’ corpse in protest to one of the offices of the Bakassi Boys located within the Ngwa road area.
On approaching the office, members of the vigilante group at the office allegedly opened fire, wounding nine of the protesters who dumped the corpse in front of the office and ran away.
Worried by the action of the sympathizers, the Bakassi Boys attempted bringing back the corpse to the hard drug spot, but on sighting a crowd of people including friends of the deceased, hurriedly turned back with the corpse.
