Reporters requested to speak with the paramount ruler of Aluu, but the
police commissioner declined, for undisclosed reasons...Three suspects
were allowed to be interviewed,Here is what they said after the cut...
Ugbaje said “Around 7 am, I left my house. I dressed up to go to work. On my street,
I saw a crowd of people with four unclad boys, who were being led into
my compound, No. 9, Royal Villa in Omuokiri-Aluu. I said what was the
problem and they said the boys were armed robbers. I said that is my
compound, let us go and see the person, if he is their member or let
them point the particular person, who is their member they were going to
look for”.
“I opened the gate, they entered. A crowd of people
that I could not control. They entered the compound. They pointed to the
room of one of our co-tenants, whose name is Bright. They said one of
the boys was staying with Bright. When they got there, Bright’s door was
locked. Some people wanted to break the door”.
“They
started beating the boys. Very serious. Along the line, two policemen
came around. One of the policemen was pleading. The other policeman
joined in beating the boys and later said the crowd should hand over the
boys to them, but the crowd said ‘no’. ‘We no go gree, we no go gree’.
“As
the policemen were leaving, they said whatever this thing was going to
bring, you would bear the result. Since I live in the yard, I said if I
stayed there and the people were killed, automatically, the house would
be in trouble. We are now in trouble. I brought out my belt; I started
flogging people and asked them to leave the yard. I was beating the
people (crowd) very seriously”.
“One Ikwerre man in the crowd
asked why I was beating the crowd for the boys to be moved from our
yard. I continued to beat the crowd to carry the boys to where they
brought them from. I drove them out of our compound and gate. They
injured me in my hand, when I was trying to open the gate”.
“I
started flogging for them to leave. There is water in our (house’s)
frontage. They went there and soaked the boys (four) inside the water. I
discovered that one of the boys was my customer on campus, at the
University of Port Harcourt, where I work. He was an Igbo student. I
asked the boy: are you a student?
“If you watch the video, you
will see me where I held belt, asking the boy. The boy told me ‘no’,
that he was not a student (of UNIPORT). Quite all right, I knew him very
well. He once bought slippers from me and used to repair slippers from
me. I am a shoemaker at UNIPORT”.
Maybe the boy was afraid to
tell me he was a student. There was nothing I could do because of the
crowd. If I talked more than that, they could join me with them.
“The
beating was going on, here and there. At the end, they finally moved
the boys out of my street. I then went out. My wife has just been
delivered of a baby.”
On his role in the lynching of the four students, Ugbaje said: “I flogged the boys twice.”
Amadi alias Kapoon said “I live at No. 9. Royal Villa in Omuokiri-Aluu. I am from Ikwerre. I
work at UNIPORT. I am a printer. I do photocopying and binding. In the
morning on that day, I dressed up, as usual, so that I could go to my
work. When I came out at the junction, so that I could pick a bike, I
saw a crowd of people, with four boys. They were unclad, with tyres on
their necks”.
“I shifted a bit, but to verify what was happening,
they told me the four boys came to rob. I asked where they were taking
them to. They said they were taking them to No. 9, where I live”.
They said they mentioned one of our neighbours. That they came to look for him as well.
“I
followed the crowd. Before I reached my estate, they had already
reached the house with the four boys in front of my neighbour, Bright,
from Ogoni. They said they were looking for one of the boys. Before they
came, the back door was locked. Some of the people in the crowd said
they were going to break the back door. Others said no, they should
leave the door, since Bright was not around. At the end, they started
beating the boys”.“They started beating the boys. In the process of beating the boys,
policemen came, but they said no, they were not going to leave the four
boys. I called this my neighbour (David Chinasa Ugbaje), with other
neighbours, that we were not going to allow that kind of thing to take
place in our estate that we would be in trouble.
“This my
neighbour (Ugbaje) collected his belt. I collected a small stick, and we
started chasing people, flogging everybody, to take the boys out of our
yard. We started pushing everybody out, including the four students.
They left their tyres, I said they should take their tyres out of the
yard and we locked our gate.
“I flogged everybody, including the
four boys, for everybody to go out. I beat one of the four boys twice
and the other one, I beat once.
Segun said “My name is Segun Lawal. I am from Osun State. I live in Omuokiri-Aluu. I
was in the house, around 6:30 am to 7 am. I am a taxi driver. I saw a
crowd and I parked my car outside. I saw a police vehicle coming and I
followed the police. I saw four policemen. I saw the policemen enter the
gate”.
“As I reached the gate, they were beating the boys. I had
to raise my hands up, to defend the boys. If you watch the video, you
will see it. I wore blue polo shirt. I started pleading for the crowd
not to kill the four boys. They did not listen”.
“The Policemen
left immediately. I had to leave. As I left, I went to GRA (Port
Harcourt); one of my customers called that I should take him to Obudu
Cattle Ranch (in Cross River State).
“I came back on Saturday
night (October 6). I was in my house. Policemen came to arrest me. I
never had this type of experience. I told the police that I was not
around. That I travelled to Obudu. I did not beat the four boys.”
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