The 13 suspects arrested in connection with
the murder of four UNIPORT students have been charged before a Port Harcourt
Magistrate on a five-count charge of conspiracy and murder and were yesterday
remanded in prison till the case comes up again in December. The Nigeria Police
Force has also dismissed the policeman who was part of the mob that killed the
students. The policeman has been identified as Lucky Orji.
Now continue to read three suspects’ account
of what happened that day…
David Ugbaje’s recount
“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 a 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’s account of what happened
“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 Lawal
“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 traveled to Obudu. I did not beat the four boys.”
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