Five people were shot dead while seven others
sustained various injuries at the Niger Bridge
Head, when members of the Indigenous people
of Biafra, IPOB, and Movement for the
Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra,
MASSOB, clashed with the Joint Task Force, JTF,
which comprised of the Army and the Police,
yesterday.
Four of the victims shot dead were members of
both IPOB and MASSOB, while one person is said
to be a soldier, who was grabbed by the mob,
angry with the way soldiers opened fire on the
jubilating crowd that included non pro-Biafra
agitators, and fell four of them before they ran,
leaving the victims behind.
All the markets around the Niger Bridge Head,
including the Bridge Head Market, Onitsha Patent
and Propitiatory Medicine Dealers Market (Ogbo
Ogwu Market) and other markets located around
the bridge, including Abada Market were quickly
shut down, following sporadic shooting by the
military to scare the jubilant crowd away.
An eye-witness at the Onitsha Head Bridge, who
was coming from Asaba end of the bridge,
said the Biafra agitators were said to be
marching on the road near the River Niger
Bridge, chanting solidarity songs in jubilation of
the release of Nnamdi Kanu, when they were
accosted by the soldiers, who ordered them to
go back, an altercation occurred which made the
soldiers allegedly open fire on them.
Another version of the story was that, the pro-
Biafra agitators and those sympathetic to their
cause, were jubilating, singing and dancing near
the bridge, the soldiers who had been guiding
the bridge since the last shooting, got incensed
by the jubilation and opened fire on the
protesters which caused the death of unarmed
protesters.
The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Mr. Ali
Okechukwu confirmed the clash and accused the
pro-Biafra agitators of mobilizing over I00 of their
members to launch attack on the soldiers at the
Niger Bridge Head and even tried to dispossess
them of their guns.
Speaking on the incident, leader of MASSOB, Mr.
Uchenna Madu said the news of the release of
Mr. Kanu elicited singing, dancing and jubilation
in Onitsha and other ‘Biafran’ lands and those in
Onitsha took their dance to Chukwemeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu plaque at the Niger Bridge
Head and out of envy, and because of the
singing and dancing, and banters they were
throwing with one another, the soldiers, who
mounted a road-block there, opened fire on the
dancing protesters and killed four.
He said that no amount of intimidation,
harassment and killing of their members will
make them resort to violence, adding that “the
military is doing all sorts of things to push us into
violence, but we will never do that because that
is what has been setting us free in all the
harassment and intimidation we have been going
through.”
