The Abia State Police Command has arrested and detained two security operatives involved in Saturday’s shooting of two officials of Federal Road Safety Corps in Aba.
The spokesman of the command, Geofrey Ogbonna, made the announcement on Monday in Umuahia in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria. He, however, declined to disclose the identities of the operatives.
Ogbonna said: “The shooting did not involve the police alone: an officer from the Department of State Services was also involved.
“The two persons have been arrested and are being detained. Investigation into the incident had commenced.”
Ogbonna said the command condemned the ‘dastardly act’ and gave assurance that there would be fairness and justice at the end of the investigation.
Meanwhile, Abia State Sector Command of the FRSC has declined to comment on the matter.
However a reliable source at the command told NAN on condition of anonymity that one of the victims had a pellet from the shot lodged in a sensitive part of his waist.
The source said: “He was booked for surgery for the removal of the pellet, but we learnt this morning that the surgery could no longer go on.
“Doctors said that surgery could cause him permanent disability and that it would be better to manage his condition with the pellet in his body.”
NAN recalls that the FRSC officials were shot on Saturday by the security aides attached to the Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Chikwendu Kalu.
The incident took place at Arungwa Junction (near Aba) on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway when the officials stopped the vehicle conveying the speaker’s wife, Victoria, to Aba.
NAN learnt that trouble started when the officials attempted to book the vehicle on the grounds that the occupants did not wear seat belts.
The speaker told newsmen on Sunday that following a distress call he got from his relations at the scene, he sent his Chief Detail to the place.
Kalu said he was surprised to hear later that there was shooting in which FRSC officials were involved.
Kanu, who condemned the shooting, described it as an act of “overzealousness” on the part of any security operative.
NAN
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