By Davies Iheamnachor

PORT HARCOURT: Unidentified gunmen have killed a Port Harcourt-based motor mechanic identified as John Okon.

The victim was shot dead in his red Golf 3, Wagon Car at Abakelike Street by Nanka, Port Harcourt City Local Government Area of the state.

It was reported that the victim, who hailed from Akwa Ibom State was killed 11pm, Tuesday, while driving along with a lady, whose name could not be identified at press time.

A source said Okon owned a mechanic workshop at Ojike by Illoabuchi but lives at Iwofe in Obio/Akpor LGA, alleging that the killing seemed like an assassination.

The source privy to the development, who did not want his name in the media, claimed that a notorious member of one of the street cult gangs in Diobu had warned Okon on many occasions to leave his female, but that the late victim had refused.

The source disclosed that the mechanic was with the alleged lover when the gunmen struck, and that the lady immediately took to her heels, but later turned herself to the police.

The source revealed that the deceased has a pregnant wife, but that the victim had not returned home after work before the killers attacked.

However, the woman, who was with the victim when the incident happened has narrated that the killers only took N200 from her bag before killing their target.

The lady, who did not disclose her name but reported the incident to Police Station in the area, stated that she is not the victim’s lover rather his neighbour.

She said: “The man, John Okon, they killed is just my neighbour. Yesterday, I went to church and on my way back, I saw him he asked me where I was going to I told him I was going home.

“He carried me and dropped me at Nanka and some boys came and pointed gun at me and said I should calm down. They searched my bag and brought out N200. They say I should lie down and the ground so that nobody will notice them. They were three in number.

“One of them passed the driver side started dragging car key with him and that was how they shot him. I fell into the gutter. When the guys ran away, I came out and ran away.

“I don’t have anything with him. I am not his girlfriend as people are saying. I am a married woman.”

Meantime, a Human Rights Activist, and the National Coordinator of Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability, Prince Wiro, has demanded that interrogation of the woman should be done without sentiment, intimidation and harassment.

Wiro said he personally took the woman to the Mile 1 Police Division to help the Police with investigation when the woman reached out to him, Wednesday, on the development.

He further demanded that justice be done and seen to be done in the matter.

Meanwhile, the Police Public Relation Officer of the Command, Grace Iringe-Koko, a Superintendent of Police, confirmed the development.

Iringe-Koko said the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of operations has mobilised personnel of the command to the area, adding that investigations into the killing has begun.