By Phil Okose Onitsha
Residents of Onitsha and environs have pleaded to the police not to abandon their duty posts because of fear of attack by suspected hoodlums who under the guise of Indigenous people of Biafra, IPOB
Eastern Security Network, ESN, attack the police like they did in the recent.
Making the plea, a resident who simply identified himself as Okay John, revealed that, “because of IPOB ESN that recently was said to have attacked police stations and killed scores, police have abandoned their duty posts here in Onitsha and environs”
“How many of them do you see on the streets now and do they now respond to distress calls, the answer is none and no”
“The other time I went to the police to lodge a complaint against somebody in my yard at Okpoko, where they call zone 9, but on getting to the gate to the Okpoko police station, an officer asked me what I came for and after telling him, he advised me to go back that nobody will go for the arrest of the suspect for now because of fear of attack by IPOB ESN”
“Criminals now have field day because they kmow the police have fled the roads and the crimunals now use tricycle, (keke) to rob and nobody challenges them”
Also a civil servant who resides at Odoakpu and pleaded anonymity, stated that, “if there is any distress call to the police, you are just wasting your time because they fear that they will be attacked
because of what is happening now, attack on police and their stations by hoodlums, I will not say IPOB because I am not sure if they are the one attackung the police”
Police have deserted the roads and you hardly see a policeman walking alone, it is either they are in the vehicle or in group walking and those guarding the banks stay inside such banks”
Mrs Rose Obison, a resident of Nkpor, told this paper that, “I live very close to the notorious Nkpor junction and what happens there is that criminals have taken it over.”
“That place is one of the flash points of criminals and just recently the police deployed to guard the place especially in the evening when the markets have closed, were shut dead and since then the police stopped deploying others to the place”.
“To worsen the situation the IPOB ESN threat is another thing because Ogidi police station was a target for destruction during the EndSARS protest. So the police here are in the midst of both criminals and Biafran agitators”
“I even mercy for the police because they are human beings and could as well die like every other person. They do not reserve their spirit some where”
“Government need to equip them very well and pay them fat salary because they are always between the devil and the deep red sea. They are target to the IPOB ESN and don’t blame them for abandoning their duty posts”
“If there is a distress call to them they will not come because they have ready-made enemy who can bounce on them not even by the slightest provocation but by mere seeing them”, she stated.
