JOE EFFIONG, Uyo
The Nigerian Correctional Service, formerly, Nigerian Prisons, Akwa Ibom State Command has insisted that the person who fatally shot one of the #EndSARS protesters in Uyo last Thursday, was not their officer.
A man simply identified as David, of South Western origin, was allegedly shot by an armed prison guard said to have been guarding prisoners in a van back to prison from the court when the deceased accosted them.
The secretary to the state government, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem who can to address the crowd along Barracks Road where the corpse was kept, had announced that the killer ‘prison guard’ had been arrested.
Ekuwem’s convoy had later evacuated the corpse to the hospital.
But in a chat with our correspondent on Thursday, the public relations officer of the Correctional Service, Mr Joseph Ogbajie, said no.officer of the service has been arrested in connection with the shooting since investigation had exhonorated all the guards on duty that day.
“None of our officers fired a shot. You know during commotion, people carry a lot of unconfirmed information. There’s lot of security men out there that day and we checked the ammunition of our guards, they were intact.
” the unit commander summoned them and it was discovered that they never fired any shot to dispense of the ammunition in their possession,” Ogbajie said.
It has come to the notice of the Controller of Corrections, Nigerian Correctional Service, Akwa Ibom State Command, Akinlola Orisabinone that Armed Correctional officers killed a protester at Ibom Plaza today.
Ogbajie had earlier issued a statement debunking the allegation that a correctional.ifficer shot David, stressing; “The Controller of Corrections, want to inform the general public that, after a thorough investigation by the officer in-charge of Uyo Custodial Center this evening, that no protester was shot or killed by men of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Akwa Ibom State Command.
“The general public should disregard this fake news as this is the handiwork of mischief makers who want to take advantage of the #EndSars protest to cause mayhem in the peaceful city of Uyo.”
Similarly the state Police comand through its PPRO, Odiko MacDon, told our correspondent that he was not aware of any such arrest since it was the duty if th correctional service to sort it out.
“I don’t speak for prisons,I speak for the Nigeria Police. Find out from prisons. If prisons say they have not made any arrest, it is not me who is going to say arrest has been made.
“The Nigeria Police, Akwa Ibom command, we have manage d the protest professionally. The arrests we have made have to do with the looting. We don’t even have the detail or identify if the victim.if the shooting. So find out from Prisons,” MacDon said.