…As Another Soldier Beats SUN Correspondent Mercilessly
A middle aged woman was today shot dead by soldiers in Warri just as the SUN Correspondent in Warri was seriously brutalized by the military.
Sources said the woman whose daughter was to getting married today in the oil city was shot from behind by one of the soldiers monitoring the environmental sanitation exercise at Effurun in Delta State.
But according to the senior son of the deceased woman, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, his mother was allegedly felled by the soldier’s bullet at about 8:00a.m on her way to her daughters wedding ceremony billed to take place later in the day.
Amid sketchy and incoherent reports, the son said the deceased mother was billed to preside at the bride’s wedding ceremony today (Saturday).
He added that things got out of hand when the keke rider who was flanked down by the trigger-totted soldier refused to stop and the soldier opened fire on the Keke driver killing the woman on the spot.
The son, who was speaking from Ekpan Police Station where the case has been reported, said the killer-soldier has been whisked away by members of the JTF contrary to reports that he has been arrested.
According him, colleagues of the killer-soldier at the road block where the incident happened, have been taken to Warri Area Command for interrogation while the corpse of the deceased woman has been deposited at the Ekpan Central Hospital Morgue.
“They have not arrested the soldier. JTF has whisked him away. His colleagues that they were at the road block together are now at Warri Area Command. She was coming to the wedding when she was killed by the soldier,” he said incoherently.
It could not be ascertained if the soldiers involved in the dastardly act were deployed from 3 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Effurun. Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Celestina Kalu and the Warri Area Commander, Mohammed Muazu, could not be reached on phone as of press time.
In another development, the SUN Correspondent in Warri got the beating of his life when some soldiers who perhaps were not aware of the impending danger at Ugbolokposo Army check point were equally informed of the rowdy situation.
The army team led by staff sergeant O. Joseph, got infuriated for informing him of the situation and rather threw the SUN correspondent on the bare floor and asked him to be rolling on the ground.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the army officer, the SUN Correspondent said, I was asked to jump into the dirty three inches gutter filled with reptiles and other dangerous species. It took the intervention of a fellow soldier and scores of sympathizers to plead for my release after thirty minutes of torture.
“He hit me with the butt of the gun, kicked me severally as if that was not enough a neighbor who just waved at me, expressing sympathy was questioned for ten minutes even when staff Sgt. Joseph continued calling me a criminal and also took my photograph.
