The Rivers State Police Command has ruled the killing of a bus driver by an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) an accidental discharge.
The bus driver popularly known as “Biggie” was killed by the NSCDC official, attached to the Rivers State Taskforce on Street Trading and Illegal Motor Park the State.
The situation that caused commercial bus drivers to protest causing pandemonium around the Ada George Road area of Obio/Akpor local government area.
It was learnt that the deceased driver was carrying passengers on the Ada George Road in Obio/Akpor Council of the state when a vehicle conveying the task force officials attempted to overtake him, but he eyewitnesses saying that in the process of struggling to overtake him, the task force operatives hit the commercial bus driver.
A driver who narrated what transpired said “I was driving behind him when it happened. The task force members blocked him at Omega, that he didn’t pack well but the driver argued with them and drove off but they followed him and blocked him at NTA here and while the argument continued the civil defenceman just shot him and when they noticed he had died they fled the scene.”
According to some of the commercial drivers, the police arrived at the scene and started shooting into the air in order to disperse protesting drivers and open up the road.
An eyewitness, Agnes Akpan, told newsmen that the driver, whose name was not ascertained as of the time of filing this story, blocked the task force vehicle with his car and insisted that they fix it.
“The driver further called on some of his colleagues, who immediately joined him to demand repairs of his vehicle, but as the task force and NSCDC officials refused to accede to their demand, an NSCDC operative, who was trapped in the pandemonium shot the driver and continued shooting sporadically in the air to scare the rampaging drivers,” she said.
Nnamdi Omoni, the public relations officer of the command said the command was investigating the incident to unravel what transpired between the deceased and the suspect.
He said that mobile Police Officers have been sent to the area to restore sanity.
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