SIMON EBEGBULEM, BENIN CITY The people of Fugar in Etsako Central Local Government Area of Edo State were thrown into turmoil on Saturday, June 27, 2015, when a trigger happy police officer, attached to a traditional ruler, shot dead two women during the burial of a former headmaster, Hon. James Oshioriamhe Etu. Other mourners at the occasion took to their heels following the gunshots which hit Sandra Emaku and Aishitu Aliyu, both of them nursing mothers.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that trouble started when the children of the deceased were dancing as part of the funeral. One of the traditional rulers (names withheld) who graced the occasion stood up to leave. As if drunk, one of the police officers attached to the monarch started shooting sporadically with one hand. The two women fell to the bullets of the officer.
While Sandra was a relation of the deceased headmaster, Aishatu, who is not from that community, came to mourn with her friend, Christiana Adams, a daughter of the deceased. The burial ceremony ended abruptly.
Angry youths attacked the police officer but the intervention of the Chairman of the LGA, Mr Emmanuel Momoh; John Akigbe; and other leaders in the area saved him, even as he was disarmed immediately by the members of a vigilante group at the burial. Edo State Police Commissioner described the incident as accidental discharge, saying however that the suspect had been arrested and will face the law accordingly.
Sporadic shooting
The Coordinator of the Vigilante Group in Etsako Central, Mr Samson Oseghemwen, who witnessed the incident, narrated how it happened to Sunday Vanguard. His words: “That day, I went there as a member of the age group of one of the sons of the father that died. While we were there, a traditional ruler came with so many people and there were some mobile policemen who escorted them to the place.
The police men were shooting sporadically.. When the monarch was about leaving, one of the policemen was holding the gun with one hand and the thing slipped off his shoulder. Before he could control the gun, two people had been shot dead. There was pandemonium and people started running in all directions. My men and I tried to protect the police man from mob attack otherwise they would have killed him. His gun, magazines were taken away from him and his identity card torn from his uniform, it was me who found them and returned them to the Divisional Police Officer in Fugar”.
Asked what could have led to the shooting by the police officer, he said, “I don’t think it was intentional but it was a kind of overzealous police man who wanted to please his master by shooting indiscriminately in a crowded place and holding the gun with only one hand and he was not strong enough to do so.
“The family of one of the deceased persons is still waiting for the corpse to be released for burial. The police said the case has been handed over to the state CID and that they need permission from Benin before burial can take place, but the one that died almost instantly was taken to Ogbona UBTH, she died there. I was the one that said they should remove the corpse because the UBTH in our area here refused to put the diseased in the mortuary. We conveyed the corpse back to Fugar General Hospital mortuary and, about two or three days later, her family came to remove it for burial because they are Muslims, but this one is still there for almost three weeks and nothing is happening.
“On Monday, I called the Area Commander who now told me that all the family needs do is to get a burial certificate in Benin so that they can remove the corpse for burial from the specialist hospital in Irrua. With the corpse in the mortuary, tension is building up; the earlier the corpse is buried the better for us and we want a cordial relationship with security agents. The sad thing is that this young lady from Fugar just delivered a baby barely two months ago and she has four other children. So it is sad, very sad”.
Regret
Christiana Adams, whose father was being buried, regreted that the incident took the life of her friend, Aisatu. “When we were dancing, the monarch, escorted by some mobile police men, was even dancing with us, when we heard people shouting, ‘he has killed her! he has killed her’!. When I ran to the scene, people were running. Some persons were protecting the police man so that he will not be beaten, that is all I could remember before I fainted”. Asked how she felt when she woke up to find out that her friend was one of the victims, she wept profusely. She stated: “The incident was like a film; we could not even continue with the burial of my father because of the problem and I even lost my best friend who came to help me. As a family, we feel bad because we couldn’t conclude the burial. My friend came from Warri because of me, now she has been buried in Auchi, heir village. We have known each other for years and it was that Saturday that she came here. She was married with two kids.
“I have talked with the family, but because of the issue, I have not been able to go back to Warri where I am based even though she has been buried according to Muslim rites”.
Drunk policeman
Emaku Paul, elder brother of Sandra, appealed to the police to release the corpse of her sister so that she can be buried. He lamented that three weeks after the incident, the police were yet to explain the killing. “By tradition, I am the father of this lady that was shot by the police. The entire family feels very bad about the incident. We are aggrieved because this is a young lady of 26 years with four children. She died and left behind two months old baby. She went there because the wife of the man that died is our aunt.
When the news came to me that our sister had been shot by a police man attached to the traditional ruler, I did not believe it. I was told the police man was drunk because he was shooting anyhow. I don’t know if government doesn’t train the police properly, why will a police man handle a rifle and use it to kill my innocent sister? Now my sister lost the husband last year. They killed her leaving four children behind, how are we going to take care of them? The police officer has turned innocent children to orphans.
“The challenge now is how to take care of the children because, when the deceased was alive, she was engaged in petty trading and was taking care of her children. So we are appealing to the Federal Government to come to our aid. Another thing that is bothering us is that since the incident happened, the police have kept her corpse, making it difficult for us to bury her. They should release the corpse to us, they cannot kill our daughter and then seize the corpse”.
It is not our tradition to keep corpse in the mortuary – Momoh
The Chairman of Etsako Central LGA, Mr Emmanuel Momoh, also spoke on the tragedy
His words: “I am not quite happy with the way the police are handling the matter. Even if you have taken the suspect into custody, you must let the victims families know that you are showing concern. As we are talking now, no member of the police force has come to this house. And we want the corpse released; it is not in our tradition to leave corpse in the mortuary especially when it happens in a manner like this.
The police keep tossing the family around. They will ask them to go to the Area Command, the Area Command will say go to Benin. It is becoming an act of provocation and, as the local government Chairman, I am not quite happy; we enjoin them that we require autopsy to be conducted on that corpse. We want to know and have something to show the children that this is what killed their mother.”
It’s a taboo-HRH Etokhana
Alhaji Jackson D.A.Etokhana, the Ogie Avhianwu of Avhianwu, described the incident as a taboo.
“I feel really bad because it happened at a time we never expected such a bad news. One, the woman was a nursing mother and I understood that she just lost her husband. For such a young woman to be killed like that as a traditional ruler, I feel bad,”he stated.
“The way the incident happened at a burial ceremony is a bad omen; it is a taboo because the burial that was being done didn’t call for such an accident to happen.
The man that was being buried was an elderly man and he was being given a befitting burial that he deserved. I don’t know how far the police have gone with their investigation, whether it is an accidental discharge or careless shooting. There was no reason to shoot in that place because everything was going on peacefully”. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/07/double-tragedy-policeman-shoots-two-mourners-dead/Picture of one of the nursing mothers gun down: The late Sandra Emaku lalasticlala 
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