RAYMOND OZOJI reports
Mrs.Somtochukwu Perpetual Onwudinjo was arrested by the police on Wednesday June 3rd this year and bundled to the B-Division police department along Anambra State Secretariat road Awka for the alleged offence of defending her husband from the brutality of the officials of the Anambra State Road Traffic Management Agency (ARTMA), who reportedly unleashed violence on the husband leading to him being beaten to the point of death and hospitalized with broken arms, bleeding nose and other severe injuries inflicted on him by the traffic officials.
Upon investigations at the B-Division police department, Mrs. Onwudinjo was seen behind the counter where other criminal suspects were kept and that the reason for her detention was unclear and officers on duty as at the time of this investigation were unwilling to grant her bail even when bail is supposed to be free. Mrs. Onwudinjo slept behind the counter at B-Division for no established offense.
Her husband Mr Ekenechukwu Anwunobi who spoke to this journalist about the development, said he can not fathom why the police kept his woman behind bars and not going after the ARTMA officials who almost killed him over a purported traffic offense.
Mr. Anwunobi, a bus driver, said he parked his vehicle in front of his wife's shop along the secretariat road and placed a caution notice beside it to avoid traffic infractions. He said he didn't park wrongly neither did he drive against traffic but ARTMA officials swooped on him and beat the daylight out of him until people around intervened and rushed him to the hospital to save his life.
Rather than finding out why the traffic officers almost took his life for a traffic offense he didn't commit, the bus driver who was hospitalised said he was told that the police came to the scene of the incident arresting people randomly including his wife.
Further investigations into the matter revealed that the bus driver's wife, Mrs. Onwudinjo was thereafter released from B-Division with the sum of N20,000.
Reacting to the foregoing, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Anambra State Road Traffic Management Agency (ARTMA) Engr. Okonkwo Emeka Konti, told this journalist that Ekenechukwu Anwunobi was not the owner of the vehicle but a mechanic.
Konti explained that rather than obey the traffic officials who accosted him; Ekenechukwu Anwunobi hit the traffic official standing in front of the vehicle and the latter fell into the gutter sustaining some injuries, adding that he has a video evidence of how other mechanics around teamed up and attacked his officers for doing their job.
The ARTMA boss further disclosed that it was one of the officials who managed to escape from the scene that reported it at the office and a reinforcement team was deployed immediately to rescue other officers from being lynched by the mob, adding that people are quick to change stories to suit their whims and caprices.
He said the matter was thereafter reported to the B-Division police department who deployed their officers and arrested all those who were involved in the mob action against the ARTMA officials, stressing that it was his officers that were mob attacked and not the driver of the vehicle. That they almost killed his officers before the police intervened.
Although the ARTMA boss said he was not aware that the police arrested the driver's wife but he was equally of the opinion that for the police to have her in custody meant they wanted to get to the root of the matter because some arrests were made and his officers were menacingly attacked by the mechanic boys who were involved in the mob action.
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