Some soldiers yesterday shut down the popular Banex Plaza at Wuse 2, Abuja following a clash between traders and two soldiers over a mobile phone.
An eyewitness, Okechukwu Daniel, said some young men who bought a phone from a phone shop about a month ago had returned the phone to the trader, saying it was faulty.
Daniel, who is also a trader in one of the shops at the plaza, said due to the long period of purchase before being returned, the seller refused to collect it.
“When the phone seller refused to collect the phone, the young men threatened him to shut down his shop, and the seller told them to do their worst. That was when they got angry and went to one of the barracks nearby and brought two soldiers to the phone seller to collect the phone.
“When the two soldiers got to the phone shop, the seller still refused to collect it. The soldiers got angry and wanted to use force on him, that was when other traders came to his rescue and beat up the two soldiers,” he said.
Another eyewitness said after the soldiers were beaten, they went back to reinforce and returned to Banez plaza to confront the phone seller and his supporters who had already fled their shops.
“When over 50 soldiers who were visibly angry got to the plaza, they could not find the traders that beat up their colleagues, so they decided to shut down the plaza by asking everyone to leave. Anyone found around the plaza was asked to frog-jump and do other punishment,” he said.