By Monsuru Olowoopejo
Worried by the circumstances that led to death of a businessman, Ifeanyi Arunsi, in Abia State, the Inspector General of Police, Muhammad Adamu, has redeployed the State Commissioner of Police, Okon Ene, and set up a Special Investigation Panel to carry out a comprehensive investigation into the unfortunate incident.
Ene, who has been redeployed to the Force Headquarters in Abuja, will be replaced by CP Janet Agbede, to avoid any vacuum and intensify law enforcement within the state.
The victim was allegedly killed last Friday while discharging goods from a truck with his co-workers in Ebem Ohafia community when the policemen, led by an Assistant Superintendent of Police, who were neither on duty nor on COVID-19 preventive assignment, went out in a private car belonging to one of them to a drinking bar, where they got drunk and on their return home, the driver hit a truck off-loading goods.
After the act, the youths within the community mobilised and set some police patrol vans ablaze, burnt DPO quarters, freed suspects in the police custody and damaged some parts of the court building in the area.
In a statement signed by the Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Frank Mba, the IGP, while condemning the act the Policemen and the youths after the incident, disclosed that the Panel will review police actions and inactions prior, during and after the death of Arunsi.
The Police boss added that the investigation panel, led by DIG Anthony Ogbizi, in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation Department, will also be required to unravel the circumstances surrounding the attack on the police station and damage to property after the incident.
While condoling the family and friends of the Late Ifeanyi Arunsi, the IGP enjoins the residents of Ebem Ohafia not to take the laws into their own hands, assuring that the investigation into this case will be swift and thorough noting that justice will surely be done to all parties.
According to him, rather residents should allow the course of justice to prevail at all times, saying, engaging in vandalism of government property would further bleed the country’s property.
