Tony Nyong
18 June 2008
Lagos — About thirteen motorcyclists, seven elderly women and ten youths are among those lying critically wounded at the St. Luke Hospital Anua, Uyo as the serenity of a usual Sunday morning and the accompanying solemnity was on Sunday 15th June, 2008 disrupted by the clash between the members of the Nigeria Police force and Villagers of Ibiaka in Nsukara Offot following the one hundred thousand naira largesse given by the Nigeria Nightmare, Samuel Peter to one Basumoh filling station to dispense Petrol and Kerosine to the poor women and motorist in the area.
At the end of the chaos, not less than fifty persons have suffered several degrees of injuries following the unruly behaviour of the members of the state Joint Task Force patrol team codenamed 'Operation Aduma' on one side and the villagers on the other side in a free for all fight which the poor villagers launched to protest the unsavory manner the police officers stampeded the crowd at the filling station in attempt to have a share of the piece of action that came courtesy of the Akwa Ibom born heavy weight champion.
The clash according to eye witnesses started when Samuel Peter who went to the Gas station to refuel his vehicle offered the said sum to the station manager of Basumoh filling station and instructed that the poor women in the area should be given Kerosine for their domestic use, while the Okada riders be served with fuel to the tune of the amount he donated. Trouble, Vanguard gathered came when Peter after staying to witness when the fist twenty okada riders were serviced entered his car and drove off and the patrol teams who had wind of the largesse immediately drove into the filling station and ordered that the pump attendant should break and fill the tanks of their four patrol hilux before continuing with the crowd. The mixed crowd of villagers who had invaded the filling station when the news of the largesse went like wild fire across the village and the Okada riders who were on queue to receive the free gift it was futher gathered had rebuffed the attempt by the patrol team to deprive them of the opportunity when the temporary madness enveloped the place and recorded the unprecedented casualty.
A mobile police officer in the team who quickly lashed a Cain at some people in the crowd got the raw reaction of the irate youths which ensued in the commotion that nearly would have claimed his life and set the station ablaze. At the casualty unit of the hospital, victims were being attended to while Vanguard also learnt that most other victims had been, moved to nearby heath centres and some tradomedicine homes for first aid for those who sustained broken limbs. Most of the people who spoke with Vanguard blamed the heavy weight boxer for choosing to touch the life of the people in a manner which according to them would have laid to the loss of life.
A furniture maker who simply identified himself as Nsikak said that the Joint task Force on patrol team have constituted themselves into something more than the ordinary and have arrogated a deceptive air of importance to themselves thereby overstepping their bounds
He questioned why the team would move into a village and pick up a man with the allegation that he slept with somebody's wife and they would keep the person for days away from his family and extort as much as sixty thousand naira from the person and called on government to review the oversight functions of the Task Force.
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