Civil Defence Personnel Kills Man over  ‘Fuel Money’

A personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps(NSCDC) Abia State Command yesterday  shot dead a 25-year-old man over delay in paying  “fuel money.”

 Kelechi Amadi an apprentice scrap metal dealer was shot on his left thigh and below his right knee by the overzealous civil defence personnel at Umuala Ubakala in Umuahia South Local Government.

The victim was said to have bled to death shortly after the NSCDC men dumped him at the Federal Medical Centre(FMC), Umuahia and fled.

An eye witness, Chukwubuikem Okpara Chukwu, told THISDAY that two civil defence  personnel had come to their shop about 10.00am and “started harassing us” and demanded for the usual fuel money.

He said that there eight apprentices in the shop when the security officers arrived and demanded for money but since their master (shop owner) was not present they could not settle the NSCDC officers.

“Our maser did not leave any instruction for us to give them(civil defence men) money and we told them to wait for our master to come and settle them,” he said.

Chukwu said that the refusal of the apprentices to bring out money infuriated the two civil defence officers who then started arresting and dumping the boys into their patrol van.

According to him, the deceased who was the junior brother of the shop owner, was pleading for the security men to release those they kept in their patrol van.

“Kelechi’s plea appeared to have made the officers more angry and one of them jumped out of the vehicle and shot him on both legs,” Chukwu said, adding that the shot apprentice succumbed to the bullet wounds at FMC.

The public relations officer of the Abia Command of NSCDC, Ndukwe Agu Egwu, told journalists when contacted on phone that he was aware the a man was shot by personnel “on patrol” but didn’t know the victim eventually died.

The NSCDC spokesman said that the officers involved in the incident stated that they were attacked by the scrap metal dealers and “in self defence” one of the officers fired his gun at the victim “to demobilise him”.

He promised that a thorough investigation of the incident would be carried out and any personnel found culpable would not be spared.

In his own account the shop owner, who is also the senior brother of the deceased, said that he was informed of the presence of the civil defence personnel and e asked them to wait for his arrival.

He said: “I was in the house and about going to the shop when I heard kpoo kpoo (sound of gun shots). I rushed to the scene of the incident and my brother was bleeding  profusely from gun shot injuries,” he lamented.

“At FMC I bought blood for my brother to be transfused but when I looked into his eyes, I knew that he was already dying”.

When journalists visited FMC, members of the Scrap Metal Dealers Association Umuahia, who had converged at the mortuary section of the hospital, were all in mournful mood as their deceased member was wheeled into the morgue.

They condemned the action of the security personnel who had formed the habit of coming to extort money from them even when they are not involved in any illegal business.