A personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC Abia State command Tuesday in Umuala Ubakala, Umuahia South LGA shot and killed a 25-year old metal scrap artisan Kelechi Amadi over N2000.00 extortion.
Kelechi who was an apprentice scrap metal dealer, was shot twice on his left thigh and below his right knee by the angry civil defence personnel and bled to death shortly after the NSCDC men dumped him at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC Umuahia and fled.
An eye witness said “as usual, the men of the NSCDC arrived at the shop where Kelechi was doing business and with impunity demanded the sum of N2000.00 as “fuel money’, which Kelechi responded that they should wait for his master who is also his brother to come.
Not having the patience, they started harassing and arresting everybody around and bundling them into their security van.
As the source was narrating their predicament in the hands of the security personnel, a call came into his phone that a team of police personnel were in his shop demanding for money.
An eye witness, Chukwubuikem Okpara Chukwu said the two civil defence personnel had come to their shop about 10.00am and demanded for the usual fuel money.
According to Chukwu, there were eight apprentices in the shop when the security officers arrived and demanded for money but since the shop owner was not present they could not settle the NSCDC officers.
“Our maser did not leave any instruction for us to give them (civil defence men) money and we told them to wait for our master to come and settle them,” he said, adding that the refusal of the apprentices to bring out money infuriated the two civil defence officers who then started arresting and dumping the boys into their patrol van.
Late Kelechi, he said was pleading for the security men to release those they kept in their patrol van, stating “Kelechi’s plea appeared to have made the officers more angry and one of them jumped out of the vehicle and shot him on both legs”, and Kelechi died at the FMC Umuahia as a result of the bullet wounds.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the Abia Command of NSCDC, Ndukwe Agu Egwu, told newsmen that he was aware the a man was shot by personnel “on patrol” but didn’t know the victim eventually died.
He said that the officers involved in the incident told him that they were attacked by the scrap metal dealers and “in self defence” one of the officers fired his gun at the victim “to demobilise him”.
He promised that a thorough investigation of the incident would be carried out and any personnel found culpable would not be spared.
Reports have it that the men of NSCDC and the police are in the habit of coming to the area to demand “fuel money” ranging from N2000.00 to N5000.00 almost on daily basis.
Information gathered indicated that men of NSCDC and the police usually come there to extort money from the artisans, noting however, “the police will beg for fuel money and if you don’t give them, they will go, but for the NSCDC, it is ‘by fire, by force’.
“They would say, ‘give us the money or we will take you to the station with allegation that you are selling stolen something’.
“When they confiscate our goods, they will go and sell the items elsewhere. We did not attack them and nobody ran away with handcuffs”.
Another witness confessed that a sum of N150, 000.00 was extorted from him last Monday by security personnel.
They condemned the action of the security personnel who had formed the habit of coming to extort money from them even when they are not involved in any illegal business.
