Tension As Bakassi Boys Kill Abia Resident In Aba

There was tension in the Uratta area of Aba, the commercial hub of Abia State, on Thursday, following the death of a resident identified simply as Sunny.

Sunny, according to sources, died as a result of injuries he sustained after being reportedly shot at by men of the state vigilante group, also known as the Bakassi Boys.

His friends and relations were said to have taken his corpse to the Aba Area Command Headquarters of the Nigeria Police to protest his killing.

It was gathered that the deceased was shot in his thigh on Sunday by the Bakassi Boys on Uratta Road, where he was loading for commercial tricycle operators.

Sources in the area said troubled started when some members of the vigilante group went to stop some notorious boys, who were alleged to be members of the dreaded Aro cult from defecating indiscriminately and smoking Indian hemp in farms and drainage system in Uratta by the Port Harcourt Road.

The situation, however, got out of hand when one of the boys, who was arrested for indiscriminate defecation, stabbed a vigilante with a knife, leaving him unconscious before escaping, prompting a hot chase and the combing of the area for members of his gang by the vigilante group.

It was learnt that in the process of combing the area, the Bakassi Boys ran into Sunny at his duty post, where he was identified as member of the group that stabbed their colleague and he was shot in the thigh.

Sunny was said to have been taken to an unidentified hospital, where bullets from a pump action gun, were extracted from his thigh only for him to die on Thursday.

It was gathered that his death caused pandemonium around Uratta as his friends and members of the offending gang went after the Bakassi Boys with different weapons and chased them away from their office at the Obuda community hall and set their patrol van ablaze.

The protesters also brought Sunny’s corpse to the gate of the Aba Police Area Command and later dropped it at the Aba Central Police Station gate, where they were chanting war songs, a development that prompted the police to fire tear gas and gunshots to disperse them.

The corpse was later taken away by the police to an unknown destination as security was beefed at the Aba Area Command and police station, which resulted in the restriction of vehicular movement.