Awka Youth leader raises alarm, accuses police of plot to bury corpse in his land to implicate him

The Youth leader of Ezinano community in Awka, Anambra state, Tochukwu Nwokoye has raised the alarm over an alleged plot to bury a corpse in a disputed land by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, Awkuzu, to implicate him.

Nwokoye said the officer in charge of the unit had accused the youths of Ezinano community of killing people and burying them in their land, an allegation he denied and described as a plot to incriminate and arrest them.

Narrating his ordeal recently in the hands of the officer in charge of Rapid Response Squad, Awkuzu, Supol Ifeanyi Iburu, Nwokoye who spoke from his hospital bed accused the police of conniving with unknown opponents to take away their land.

He said that they were in their ancestral land at Ezinano and suddenly a team of police men led by Supol Ifeanyi Iburu stormed the place, started shooting sporadically, ordering them to lie down or be shot dead.

“We were at our land at Ezinano on the first of this month (September 2024). We have plotted the land , fenced it, even our women have planted cassava there. When we went there, we discovered that some people came with excavators and were destroying our crops, removing beacons,” he narrated.

“We sent our Youth Secretary to B division, in Awka ,to make entry along with the ladies who planted cassava there. The Divisional Police Officer in charge of B division sent two policemen to know what was happening; before then we had stopped those people with excavators from destroying our crops and removing our beacons.

” As we were there, suddenly, we saw some people with guns shooting and asking us to lie down or risk being killed. We obeyed and they were about 15 in number. As the Youth leader, I asked them what the problem was. But, instead (of explaining their mission), they started beating me.

“One of the B Division officers sent by their DPO told them that they were there to investigate the problem, but they also fell upon and beat him up, accusing him of aiding and abetting criminalities in the town.

“When we got to Awkuzu RRS Station, they brought out one AK 47 rifle, tried to hang it on my neck;I resisted it and they started beating me again and forcefully hung the gun on my neck and took pictures of me with the gun.

” After that, Iburu ordered that I be sent to cell five, meanwhile, he had not taken any statement from me. As I got inside the cell, I saw about seven malnourished persons and they told me for three months they had not eaten. Not up for 30 minutes, one died and they took him away.

“At about 6.30 to 8pm, they called my name and said that I should wear my clothes. I wore my clothes; they started threatening to kill me again and I asked again, what is the problem? He said that we have been killing people and burying them in that land. He said that if they could not find any one ,they would bury one for us and show the AK47 he found with me.

“I never knew we were heading to the office of the State Commissioner of Police and when we got there, the CP asked him whether he recovered the AK47 from me, he said no. He asked him again whether he snapped a picture of me with an AK47, he said no. Then the CP directed that he should go and release me.”