Read How A Policeman Was Murdered In A Beer Parlour In Aba

Police IG Solomon Arase.

Some gunmen on Tuesday, March 15, killed a police officer, Joseph Otegbe at a beer parlour in Aba, an eye witness has said.

The eye witness, Ifeanyi Okenwa who spoke to Naij.com said the police officer was out drinking with some friends at a beer parlour when the assailants shot him.

The beer parlour the witness said is located at 32 Park Road by Ube Street in Aba, Abia state:

“All of them where just here drinking when four men came into the place, one of them was wearing a mask. Immediately they came, they brought out their guns and everybody here started running,

“Immediately people started running, they called people back and said they should relax that they came for the police officer,

“They first shot him on his leg, then he started running with it and they shot at him more.

“He died instantly, it was even this morning that some people came to carry his car (a white jeep) out of the place where the policeman parked it that night."

Another eye witness said that the next day after the incident occurred, some police officers came around the area arresting residents within the location:

“The police people came this morning and arrested the other oga that sells drinks opposite the beer parlour where the police officer was drinking with his friends; they also arrested one guy, a tailor on this street,

 “Another woman who has a salon on this Pound Road, was arrested with a Guinness lorry driver in the morning but they later released the driver because he gave them his I.D card. One old woman was arrested too, she was carrying “bacco” bag, I think she just came back from the market when the police people picked her and put her inside their vehicle,” he said.

But the spokesperson for the Abia state police command, Onyeke Ezekiel, confirming the story said that the officer, deputy superintendent of police was gunned down in a way that made it look like an assassination.

Ezekiel said:

“He was gunned down at about 9 pm, the information we had was that someone invited him to that place through the phone, when he came down and was about getting back into his vehicle they shot him.”

“The people only took his sandals, and his telephone, they did not take even the money on him which was close to N20,000 and his vehicle was not taken too.

“No, it was the police who went there and recovered the vehicle back to the office. I saw the vehicle yesterday when we went to Aba."

The police spokesperson, however, refuted claims of mass arrest by the police in the area.

He said:

“There is nothing like that; you see when incident like this happens, the police is permitted to ask questions from people who they believe reasonable information could come from.

“And if they pick people for that purpose, at least the people who carried out the act are not spirits but that does not translates to mass arrest,, when we ask questions and find out that they know nothing, we leave them to go.”