Four people were feared killed as police officers clashed with members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in Aba North Local Government Area of Abia State.
T=It was gathered that the incident took place on Friday when IPOB members who dressed in white apparel and covered their faces with nose masks, took to the Osusu area to hold a peaceful protest for the release of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu from the custody of the Department for State Security (DSS), Abuja.
They chanted a series of pro-Biafra and anti-Nigeria songs to further press home their anger over the continued detention of their leader.
An account of the incident had it that four members of the IPOB were gunned down by Police personnel.
There wasn’t any official statement from either the Police or IPOB over the incident as at the time of filing this report.
According to Vanguard, sources within the Osusu axis of the commercial city disclosed that the environment got charged when security operatives from the Nigeria Police Force arrived Osusu and in a bid to disperse and possibly force the IPOB protesters off the streets, started firing sporadically into the air.
The source said it appeared that the police operatives who initially were firing into the air, were engaged by the protesters.
The source said: “You know that for some now, if they (IPOB) want to protest, they do it around here and other hidden places. But today, I think that they were ready to brace the odds.
“Against their usual black and black, they dressed in white clothes all through except a few of them, giving the indication that they were for peace. They were about 300-500.
“But I think that the protest leaked into the ears of the security agencies who arrived at the venue and started shooting into the air.
“It is not clear, but it appears that the IPOB people who had managed to be peaceful, turned violent and the kind of bullets that rained on top of zincs further caused tension.
“It was like a war zone. Everybody was running helter-skelter. Passengers inside buses jumped out to look for safety. Shop owners abandoned their shops to safety.
“Parents, including myself, had to go to my children’s school that is near to pick them back home.
“Some people like my neighbours who were already heading for Ariaria and Cemetery markets turned back. It was about 3pm that one of them managed to go to the market to shop for the weekend for her family.
“Until the time she was leaving the house, she was yet to overcome the shock and trauma of the incident.”
The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) Geoffrey Ogbonna, who claimed not to have received any information (sitrep; Situation Report) on the incident.