Newspaper vendor shot to death by Naval Officer

    There is palpable anxiety in Nnoyi Junction, Isialangwa South Local Government Area of Abia State over the killing of an Onitsha-based newspaper vendor by trigger happy Naval officer. Daily Sun gathered that the deceased, 23-year-old Chukwudi Onunkaji, who hailed from Amiyi village in Umuelele Community in Isialangwa South Local Government Area of Abia State met his untimely death when he was accompanying his relatives to the burial of one of their brothers.

Chukwudi, who until his death was a member of the Newspaper Vendors Association in the commercial city of Onitsha was killed by the naval officer on July 20 in company with some members of the Anambra State local vigilance group who went for the burial of one of the security men who died in an auto crash.
An eyewitness, Emeka Nwanka, another newspaper vendor based in Onitsha who also attended the burial narrated  the tragic scenario that led to the death of the deceased. According to Emeka, the incident happened when they took the corpse of a security man who served at the GRA, Onitsha who died in an auto crash home for burial in Nnoyi, where they encountered the naval officers.
  
 “We were in a convoy of about 10 vehicles and the ambulance conveying the corpse of the deceased and the Hilux vans belonging to the vigilance group in front and another one at the back. When we got to Umuikaa Junction near Owerrinta, we met a terrible traffic jam, so we diverted to a local route. It was when we got there that we found out that the traffic jam was caused by Naval officers at Umuikaa Junction.”
He narrated further: “When we got inside the compound with the first Hilux van conveying the vigilante and the ambulance, we heard a sound of gun shot in the air, it was at that moment that we were told that Navy people had held the remaining Hilux vans carrying other members of the vigilante. The first van in which  the boy that was killed was, reversed alongside the full convoy to go and meet the Naval officers to explain to them that we were not armed robbers but that we came for burial.”
The source further said that on getting to Nnoyi Junction, they found out that the Naval officers had disarmed the security men and ordered them to lie face down. When they approached the senior naval officer, he jumped out of his vehicle and ordered everybody to lie down and in the process, opened fire on the security men and in the process, the vendor was killed.

 “When we got back to Nnoyi Junction, on sighting the first batch of the vigilante who had entered into the compound, the leader of the officers jumped out and ordered everybody to lie down. When one of the vigilante tried to tell him that we were not armed robbers and showed him the ambulance carrying the corpse of their member, he opened fire on us and Chukwudi was hit in the lower abdomen.”
He also disclosed that when the naval officers realised what they had done, they beat a retreat and went back into their van even as the boy writhed in pains and bled profusely.