Troops Escape Death, Patrol Van Burnt as Hoodlums Attack Checkpoint in Aba

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

Troops of the Nigerian Army narrowly escaped death yesterday, during an attack by gunmen at a military checkpoint in Aba, the commercial city of Abia State.

The incident which was said to have taken place at the popular Tonimas Junction along the Aba axis of the Enugu – Port Harcourt Expressway apparently took the soldiers by surprise.

According to an eyewitness, the troops who were usually deployed to man the checkpoint, arrived in the morning only to be greeted by gunfire from the hoodlums, who had apparently laid ambush for them.

The eyewitness, who is a resident of the area where the attack took place, said that “people were scared to the point of jumping out of their skins,” during the exchange of gunfire between the hoodlums and the troops.

It could not be ascertained if any soldier died in the assault but their patrol van was completely burnt by the hoodlums.

At the time of the incident, residents of Aba were observing the usual sit-at-home directive of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), whose leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, was in court yesterday in continuation of his treason trial in an Abuja High Court.

The Army high command in Abia was yet to make any official statement on the incident with the spokesman of the 14 Brigade Ohafia, Omale Innocent, saying that he was yet to get details of the Aba incident when he was contacted on phone.

Nonetheless, other sources at the Brigade headquarters, who preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed the attack but dismissed the insinuations that soldiers died during the incident, insisting that there was no casualty.

The source also said that the gunmen did not take away any weapon from the troops as reported by some social media outlets, noting that “no soldier lost his life or his weapon.”

Some residents of the area lamented that they were frightened while the gunfire lasted.

 Ashiru Elected IFFS’s Secretary-General 

Nigeria’s Professor of Anatomy and consultant reproductive endocrinologist, Prof Oladapo Ashiru, has been elected Secretary-General of the International Federation of Fertility Societies, IFFS.

Ashiru, OFR, FAMedS, was elected on April 6th, 2022, during the General Assembly of the World Fertility Congress in Athens, Greece.

The new IFFS scribe is the first black to be so elected and will be in office for the 2022-2025.

The IFFS World Congress provides a unique platform for attendees to convene, learn and discuss current advances in reproductive health, access to fertility care, and reproductive rights across the globe, and engage the patient perspective.

The theme of the 24th World Congress was ‘Exploring New Horizons in Fertility Care’.

The International Federation of Fertility Societies is a long-standing global organisation representing National Fertility Societies since 1968.

It represents over 65 United Nations country-specific Fertility Societies that, in the aggregate, encompass an estimated 50,000 physicians and reproduction medicine specialists worldwide, including various healthcare professionals. The IFFS is the world body on Fertility and a non-state organisation in an official relationship with the World Health Organisation.