From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Four persons, including policemen, may have lost their lives during a fight between some bank customers and the police on Friday, in Aba, Abia State, over scarcity of the new Naira notes.
The scuffle, was said to have started when customers of some banks within the Samek junction axis of Faulks Road within Ariaria International Market area, engaged in a peaceful protest, but were confronted by a team of the Nigeria Police Force on patrol, a situation that may have led to the escalating outcome.
Eye witnesses told Saturday Sun, that the intrusion of the police operatives to forcefully quench the protest, led to free use of dangerous weapons, including broken bottles, daggers and heavy objects in the fight.
“Dangerous weapons including daggers, broken bottles, stones and cement blocks packed in building sites were used,” one of the witnesses who refused to be named, told our correspondent. According to him, four persons were said to have lost their lives during the attacks which led many traders in the area up to Ukwu mango Ariaria/Port Harcourt Expressway, to hastily close their shops and vacate the area, into safety.
Another witness who lives close by along Faulks Road, said a team of policemen, later came in a patrol van and began shooting in the air, probably to scare people away, as they carried away the corpses of those that died, and zoomed off.
Abia Police spokesman, Geoffrey Ogbonna, was yet to make any statement on the incident, and could not be reached by telephone, as at the time of this report.