As anger and conflicting claims rage over last Sunday’s killing of members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) by Nigerian security operatives during their meeting in Emene, Enugu, www.Africanewscircle.com today spoke with a journalist on ground who covered the incident.
The reporter, Mr Chukwubuike Madu, who works with Radio Nigeria, Enugu station said it is still not clear what the real casualty figure was given what was observed on ground as opposed to the conflicting accounts by both the police and the IPOB.
He posited that unravelling the true picture of events leading to the invasion of the venue of the meeting by a combined team of soldiers and police and its immediate aftermath requires a commission or panel of enquiry.
He however gave his personal observations on the matter as follows:
“(1) Police claimed that 2 DSS operatives were abducted by IPOB when some personnel of the service went to disrupt the IPOB guys engaged in martial arts training and physical exercise.
According to the Commissioner of Police, with the assistance of sister security agencies, they rescued one of the abducted DSS men. But the DSS later in a statement that Sunday claimed that 2 of their operatives died in the clash. This puts a question mark on the claim by the police that they rescued a DSS personnel.
“Again, during the briefing by the Commissioner of Police, he never said that any DSS officer was killed or died in the clash. However, immediately after DSS had issued the statement on the loss of 2 of their men, police in Enugu here, issued their own statement and stylishly infused that they recovered 2 lifeless bodies of DSS officials.”
Madu further narrated that “on the said day, journalists on duty could see only four corpses, including the one that was set ablaze. This account didn’t differ from the figures released by the police.
“But we have to note that there were sporadic shootings and some people suffered bullet wounds and one of my colleagues saw some being treated in nearby hospitals and the security forces later went in search of people with bullet wounds in some hospitals.
“So one wouldn’t know if the number of deaths was beyond four as being alleged by IPOB and some others. It’s possible that there were other deaths.
“Though during the CP’s briefing, he claimed IPOB started shooting sporadically before combined team of security forces responded and got down two of IPOB guys, the police never showed us guns/arms/ammunition they recovered from them.
It was later in a press statement that police claimed they recovered machete and logs of wood that were affixed with nails.
Also, the arrested IPOB guys denied abducting any DSS personnel but how do we know that?”
