ENUGU STATE: POLICEMAN PUNCHES CUSTOMER AT GTB FOR INSISTING THAT A CHINESE QUEUES UP LIKE OTHERS

Some customers of the Guaranty Trust Bank Ogui Road Branch Enugu, have called for disciplinary action against a police officer deployed to the bank, who allegedly assaulted a customer.

The customer was said to have been punched in the face by the police officer for objecting to preferential treatment given to a Chinese customer by security officials of the bank.

Radio Nigeria gathered that the alleged police brutality caused uproar among customers within the bank premises

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, banks in Enugu State no longer open their gates to all customers at the same time for normal services.

Rather, customers are made to wait at the gate as they come and allowed in only in a group of five or ten, a situation that leads to long hours of waiting.

This new tradition of waiting for one’s turn at the gate was disrupted when two security personnel at the Ogui Road Enugu branch of the Guaranty Trust Bank wanted to allow a Chinese-man entry into the banking hall a few minutes after his arrival, an action that angered a crowd of customers.

One of the customers, Mr. Christopher Ochieze, was allegedly punched in the face by a policeman attached to the bank for being critical of the preferential treatment.

Narrating his ordeal with one side of his face swollen, Mr. Ochieze said, “we were just advising the policeman to allow the Chinese-man to take his own number, that we have been here since seven o’clock, that it would look unfair for them to give that kind of preference to a Chinese-man. That was all we told him, he started hitting me, wanted to blind my eyes.”

Some customers, who witnessed the incident, including Mr. Ifeanyi Njoku, expressed worry that a law enforcement agent would prefer a foreigner and treat him better than a fellow citizen.

“He was beaten for insisting that the Chinese man queue up like every other person. Imagine going to other countries and such a thing being done to you, you will fee bad but here in our own country, we are being marginalized by our own security men in favour of foreigners, it’s heartbreaking and saddening,” Mr. Njoku stated with regret.

Another customer, who did not want his name mentioned, also condemned the type of treatment meted to people in the bank since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People will be standing under the sun, there is chair, there is no comfortable atmosphere for us to even wait till it gets to our turn. So getting such a treatment is really heartbreaking,” the anonymous customer lamented.

Efforts by Radio Nigeria to get the reaction of the management of the bank to the incident failed after spending over an hour there as some officials claimed that neither the branch manager nor the operations manager was in the office while the bank’s Chief Security Officer who was told to react to the incident never showed up.

However, in a telephone interview, the Police Public Relations Officer, Enugu State Police Command, Mr. Daniel Ndukwe Ekea advised the allegedly brutalized customer to report the matter to the Ogui Divisional Police Office, Enugu, for investigation.

Mr. Ndukwe Ekea said if the story of the alleged punch was confirmed, the affected policeman would be disciplined accordingly.

CHKWUBUIKE MADU