By Emma Amaize

WARRI—THE families of Mrs. Alice Akparobi and Shedrack Saduwa in Delta State are calling on Nigerian Army authorities to arrest and prosecute officers allegedly involved in extra-judicial murder and attempted murder of their daughter and son respectively by soldiers attached to the 3 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Effurun Barracks, near Warri.

Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai

In a joint petition by their solicitor, Oghenejabor Ikimi Esq., the families said one of the soldiers in an army checkpoint at Jakpa Junction, Effurun, opened fire on a tricycle rider, April 30, during the sanitation exercise, “which in turn hit Mrs. Akparobi and Mr Shedrack Saduwa, who were at the material time present at the scene of the incident.”

According to the counsel, “The victims were abandoned by the said soldiers in the pool of their blood, until Mr. Shedrack Saduwa, who was hit on the stomach on the fateful day with his intestines gushing out, was rushed to a nearby hospital.

“However, Mrs. Alica Akparob was not lucky as she passed on twenty minutes after the incident and her corpse deposited at the morgue of the Central Hospital, Warri by soldiers from the 3 Battalion, Effurun, led by Major Laleye on the same day.

“While the corpses of another two other unidentified victims hit by the bullet of the same soldiers at the scene of the incident were also deposited at the morgue of the Central Hospital Warri,” he said.

Oghenejabor Ikimi said a meeting was later called at the instance of Major M. Anzaku, Commanding Officer, Effurun Barracks, , where the family of late Mrs. Akparob was offered the sum of N200,000.00 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira) by the said Major M. Anzaku.

While noting that the family rejected the said sum, meant to bury the deceased, the solicitor urged the army chief to “apprehend and court-martial the said soldier or soldiers involved in the ugly incident in accordance with military laws and hand him or them over to the Nigeria Police for prosecution.”