4 KILLED, 5 ARRESTED AS SECURITY FORCES AND IPOB CLASH IN ENUGU

 Reporter : CHUKWUBUIKE MADU

Police have confirmed four persons dead during a clash between security agencies and some members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Emene, an outskirts of Enugu.  The Commissioner of Police Enugu State Command, Mr. Abdurrahman Ahmed, made this known at the Command’s headquarters when he paraded five suspected IPOB members arrested during the encounter.

Radio Nigeria gathered that there was pandemonium Sunday morning in Emene, the industrial hub in Enugu State, as there were sporadic gun shots and barricade of some internal roads. This situation led to momentary heavy vehicular on the Enugu-Abakaliki Road as  motorists and residents of the area, most of whom were either going or returning from church services, scampered for safety.

Briefing journalists on the incident, Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abdurrahman Ahmed, alleged that the IPOB members abducted two operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS) who came to apprehend them during an alleged weapon training in the area.

Mr. Ahmed said it took the intervention of a combined team of the police, army and air force to rescue one of the abducted DSS operatives, alleging that IPOB members had gone on rampage, disturbing the peace and security of the area by burning tyres and shooting sporadically.

“Members of the DSS were there on their own operation early in the morning. So they came under attack and IPOB took away two of their officers.

“Getting this detail, I had to seek for reinforcement from other sister security agencies, the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army and men of the air force assisted my men. That was how we cordoned the area. We were lucky we rescued one (DSS personnel) alive,” the Police Commissioner stated.

Mr. Ahmed confirmed that four persons died during the incident, five suspected IPOB members arrested while some other members of the group escaped with bullet wounds.

“There are two people who were feared killed by these IPOB members. They also set ablaze an innocent passer-by, who we could not identify yet and also hacked another person to death by machete cut, making it four deaths.

“We have arrested this five (persons) while many had escaped with gun injuries and we have to trace them because they have to go to some hospitals and seek for treatment,” he noted.

The Police Commissioner while encouraging hospitals to treat any person with bullet wound directed management of hospitals to report such a person being treated to the police, nothing that failure to do so would amount to aid and abating criminals.

Meanwhile, some of the arrested suspects claimed they neither attacked the DSS nor were having any weapon training as they never had any dangerous weapon on them. They rather claimed it was the DSS operatives and later a combined team of security forces that attacked them while they were exercising their bodies and learning martial arts for self defence. 

In the meantime, the Police command said they were trailing fleeing members of the group and would prosecute those arrested after investigation.