COVID-19: Abaribe kicks against police brutality, killings in South East

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has condemned what he called “the frightening rate of extra-judicial killing of innocent Nigerians, particularly in the South East by policemen in the guise of enforcing the COVID-19 lockdown.”

Abaribe, in a press release in Abuja by his Media Adviser, Uchenna Awom, also charged the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar Adamu to explain to Nigerians why his men have found the entire South East as most vulnerable in the circumstance to deploy such level of maximum force on citizens.

He alleged that not less than six Igbo youths had been sent to their early grave on account of their failure to obey the lockdown order.

“Why the concentration in the South East,” he queried. “In Aba, Abia State, precisely at Uratta Junction, one youth was allegedly gunned down, while another was heavily brutalised with gun butts to the point of coma on Friday. This came a day after another young man was killed at Umuikaa Junction for no just cause. It would be recalled that two weeks ago, an attendant in a petrol station in Ogbor Hill was also shot and killed, while on duty by a policeman, who claimed stray bullet.

“There are also reports of protests in Ohafia, Abia State, yesterday, over alleged killing of some youths in the community by the same police. We have not forgotten the alleged killing of another young man in Nkpor near Onitsha in Anambra State…”

Abaribe said it was ironical that the South East, which has not recorded up to three deaths, due to the pandemic, has lost more of her people in such brutal, but avoidable circumstances in the hands of people that are statutorily empowered to protect them.