Police, MASSOB Clash in Onitsha Leaves One Person Dead, Several Injured

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Ignatius Okpara, Latest Headlines, News Saturday, December 28th, 2013

IGNATIUS OKPARA, Onitsha

Members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, (MASSOB) on Friday clashed with the Police in Onitsha, leaving one of their members dead, while eleven others sustained various degrees of injuries.

Police, MASSOB Clash in Onitsha Leaves One Person Dead, Several Injured

An eye witness told our correspondent that trouble started when a police team on surveillance flagged down a motorist along the ever busy Onitsha/Owerri road and started maltreating him, probably for allegedly refusing to give them money an action, which drew the attention of MASSOB members that were controlling the traffic in the area since the yuletide, as they confronted the security men.

However, the intervention of the MASS0B members in the matter angered the police men, resulting to a heated argument which later led to assault between the MASSOB members and the police.

while the argument was raging, one of the policemen, according to the source, pulled out his rifle and shot at a MASSOB member who died instantly, just as the police men disappeared from the scene immediately for fear of uncertainty.

Watching one of their members lying in the pool of his blood, the MASSOB members in anger barricaded the -busy Onitsha / Owerri road for over two hours, just as they made bonfire with fairly used tyres, a situation that compelled traffic flow to divert to the Obosi by-pass.

However, the corpse of the late MASS0B member was said to have been taken to the Awada Police Station.

When contacted, the Onitsha Police Area commander, Mr. Benjamin Wordu, confirmed the incident but said trouble stated when MASSOB and a rival group had a bloody clash, a statement, the militia group swiftly dismissed.

Wordu, said immediately he got information about, the incident, he dispatched a team of policemen to the troubled area, adding that normalcy has since returned to the commercial city.