A Police operative on patrol at Kubwa, Abuja, on Wednesday night, allegedly shot and killed a father of one, Onybuchi Anele, with a teargas canister after a minor incident involving a motorcyclist.
The incident happened close to Haj Estate, where the deceased lived with his young wife and one daughter.
An eyewitness, who pleaded anonymity, while speaking to LEADERSHIP when our correspondent visited the scene, said: “the deceased, while on his way home, hit an okada man and his passenger and after stopping and making sure the accident victims were okay, decided to head home in the Haj Estate when policemen arrived the scene.”
The eyewitness further explained that trouble started when the policemen, who arrived the scene, decided that the deceased must follow them to their station even after the okada man and his passenger had left the scene to go. The ensuing altercation triggered quarrel, which led to the policeman shooting the teargas canister into the eye of the deceased at a close range.
The witness explained that the church members of the deceased and his neighbours in the estate came out and took the deceased to Kubwa General Hospital after which, he was referred to National Hospital, where he eventually died around 8am on Thursday.
Friends of the deceased, who were in the hospital with him until his death, said the issue had affected his wife emotionally.
“The woman started behaving as if she wanted to get mad. Small time she will sit, a little more time she moves with force and starts running away. She was smuggled into a vehicle and hurriedly whisked away. We had to deceive her that her husband was still alive whereas the corpse had been deposited in the mortuary,” one of his friends, Mr Ndubuisi Nwaneri, said.
However, when the FCT Police spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, was contacted over the incident, she said she would get back to LEADERSHIP with more details, which she has not done at press time.