VIDEO: Lockdown: How Mobs Attack Naval Officers After ‘Soldier Shoots Youth Dead’

Irate mobs in Warri, commercial nerve centre of Delta State, on Thursday attacked two naval officers perceived to be among soldiers who fired the shot that reportedly killed a young man for allegedly driving on the road instead of observing the stay at home order.

The soldiers were drafted to the streets on the order of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to enforce the stay at home COVID-19 regulations for the curtailment of the novel disease, Coronavirus which is ravaging the world.

In the footage of videos seen by BIGPEN, hundreds of irate mobs had descended on the naval officers who they caught before he could flee the scene.

The mobs used every object at sight to hit one of the officers who at some point fainted, staggered and fell down again. The mobs, in a random attack also burnt their motorcycle before they were rescued and spirited away. 

According to a source, the naval personnel were not from the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS), Delta. “They were not armed and were going to their respective units when the hoodlums attacked them,” a source said.

Trouble started after some army officers allegedly killed a youth simply identified as Joseph Pessu who reportedly was driving during the lockdown hours and failed to stop when he was flagged down by some army officers, who were on patrol along the NPA expressway.

“One of his tyres was first blasted by one of the army officers. He quickly parked in a nearby street off the NPA Expressway to explain why he refused to be flagged down but the temper of one of the soldiers couldn’t make him wait for any explanations. He was then shot at close range by the trigger-happy army officer who refused to listen to any explanation”, sources from the area claimed.

BIGPEN reported that a military source, however said that the soldiers suspected the deceased was an armed robber going by the way he drove the car and refused to stop despite the chase.

The source disclosed that soldiers fired several warning shots to deter the deceased all through the Ekpan axis but he refused to stop, thus fueling the suspicious.

“When the deceased refused to stop, the soldier went after him and shot at one of the rear tyre. The young man continue to drive the car with a burst tyre until he got to Ogunu. He blocked the road with his car, jumped out and started running.

“It was then the soldier assumed him to be a suspect and shot at him. Immediately, the incident happened, the soldier drove directly to the Area Command of the Nigeria Police to report himself”.

The neither the Nigerian Army nor the Navy authorities were yet to make any comment as of press time on the dastardly act which has drawn condemnation from far and near.