A 67-year-old driver, Nnamdi Onuka, has narrated how he escaped death from the hands of an armed robbery gang that shot him after killing two Mobile Policemen who were escorting him to the bank and cart away their riffles in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Onuka said he was happy when he heard that two members of the gang were arrested by the Inspector–General of Police Intelligence Response Team( IRT), but regretted that the family of one of the suspects has approached the panel of inquiry on Special Anti Robbery Squad ( SARS ) to make frivolous allegation on the policemen who arrested him of extortion.
Onuka said: ” One of my colleagues and two policemen were providing escort for us, were attacked by a gang of heavily armed robbers, who double-crossed our vehicle on Ojoto Street, in Woji area of Portharcourt, while we were taking some amount of money to the bank and opened fire on us, before carting away the money in our vehicle.
“I sustained bullet wounds which shattered my leg, my colleague had one of his fingers cut off by the robbers’ bullet, while the mobile policemen providing escort for us, were gruesomely murdered at the scene and their Ak-47 rifles were taken away by the robbers.
“He was resuscitated by doctors at the nearby hospital where I was rushed to, as I lost consciousness when the shooting started. The bodies of the policemen were later deposited at the morgue of the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital.
“Few weeks after the incident, I got the news that two members of a robbery gang who attacked us have been arrested by IRT, who were deployed to Rivers State to investigate and track down the robbers. The photographs of the two arrested suspects, who were also identified as Nnamdi Everest and Edward Leera, were shown to me at the hospital where I was receiving treatments and I identified Leera as the person who opened fire on me during the attack.
“I was happy when I got the news of the arrest of the robbers who attacked me and also killed the two policemen escorting me to the bank, but I miffed that relatives of one of the robbers, Edward Leera, had approached the Panel on Inquiry in Abuja accusing the police of arresting Leera because he refused to pay the sum of N3million bribe. I am still suffering from the hardship which followed the robbery incident. I was rendered incapacitated after that robbery incident and have been going to the hospital on a regular basis and I have no job. I have 10 young children and a wife who is dependent on me while I was working and after the robbery attack, I have been jobless. My poor wife is selling Akara at the front of our house and the little money we make from it is what we have been using to feed. I
felt happy when the police informed me that they have arrested the armed robbers who shot me and killed the policemen escorting me to the bank. The same robbers who got me into the condition I am suffering today. I can no longer walk on my own. I was even lucky that I didn’t lose my life like the two policemen who were with me. I am sad that a relative to one of the robbers, would approach the panel on the inquiry on SARS with lies that the robber who shot me was arrested because he couldn’t pay an N3million bribe the police asked him to pay.
This is so sad, I thought the panel was for people with genuine claims of SARS brutality not for people who were culprits. Leera and his gang members shot me and my colleague and they also killed the two policemen on our convoy, I wonder how does that makes him an innocent man that was wrongfully arrested by the police. I want the panel to also address our issues as victims of these robbery attacks.” He lamented
