Law firm protests alleged murder of petrol hawker
Robbers attack woman, abandon vehicle at Kubwa FCTA approves domestication of trade, investment policy
law firm, A.A Gulak & Co, has petitioned the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), over an alleged extra-judicial killing of one Usman Alhaji Fatar, a petrol hawker, by an environmental task force in Abuja.
In the petition dated April 28, 2015 and made available to City News, the firm alleged that men of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board ( AEPB) in company of some naval officers stabbed the deceased on the stomach.
According to the petition, the incident happened on April 18 at about 6:30 p.m. when men of AEPB on routine operation chased petrol hawkers on Nnamdi Azikiwe road by Area One, Abuja.
The petition claimed that the deceased, who was among the hawkers being chased, was stabbed twice on the arm and jaw.
“The Naval officer in company A 36-year-old business woman was on Tuesday attacked by some unidentified robbers who snatched some amount of money from her along Byazhin road in Kubwa, a satellite town in the FCT.
City News learnt that the incident took place around 9a.m. after the woman boarded a Golf car carrying the robbers, numbering three at the Liberty junction.
The source said one of the robbers sitting at the back with the victim suddenly dipped his hand inside her hand bag and took the sum of N42,000 while the vehicle was in motion.
“The woman immediately started shouting which forced the driver to stop and two of the robber to jumped out of the car,” it added. of the AEPB officials followed the deceased to a point near a car wash behind a filling station on the road, where he was allegedly stabbed which resulted into his death as confirmed by doctors at a nearest hospital, where he was rushed to,’’ the petition claimed.
The law firm, in the petition signed by one M.S Dukas, Esq, requested the commission to investigate the alleged extrajudicial killing of innocent citizens by the law enforcement agents with the aim of bringing the culprits to book in order to serve as deterrent to others.
According to the source, the driver zoomed off again, but could not continue, as a result of the victim’s continuous shouting and struggling with the steering wheel of the car with him.
City News further gathered that the driver eventually stopped around the NNPC junction, as the persistent alarm raised by the woman attracted some commercial motorcyclists and passers-by who came to her rescue.
“The driver immediately took to his heels, abandoning the car at the mercy of the irate motorcyclists, who almost destroyed it before the arrival of the police.
When contacted, the Kubwa Divisional Police Officer, Chief Superintendent Nurudeen Sabo, confirmed the incident, saying the vehicle has been impounded by the police, while efforts are on to arrest the suspects.
But when contacted yesterday, AEPB’s head of Information, Barrister Joe Okaro, said the board is not aware of such incident, saying he would have to confirm before commenting on the issue.
Alhaji Sanni, AEPB’s Head of Operation, also denied knowledge of the incident when contacted on phone yesterday.
“I am the head of operation and I do not go out with the team except there are some issues to handled. On that day, the report I received was that one of the field officers was attacked and stabbed The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on Monday, during the FCT Executive Committee meeting, approved the domestication of the FCT Trade and Investment Policy.
This is to accelerate the volume of trade, investment and industrial development in the territory.
FCT Minister Bala Mohammed, said that the domestication policy will accelerate the pace of industrial development by increasing value addition at every stage and increasing Total Factor Productivity.
Mohammed remarked that in the short term, the policy seeks to increase in the stomach while trying to remove an orange hawker, who displayed his products on the road.
“I also got a report that our van was stoned by hawkers and our boys had to jump into the vehicles and run back to the office,” he explained.
He said he never received any report on the killing of any hawker along the Nnamdi Azikiwe road in Area One, adding that the attack on their vehicle was by Apo bridge and that their field officers had to run back to the office. the number of the manufacturing companies in the FCT as well as provide support services that will enable manufacturers take advantage of existing opportunities for accessing funds.
According to him, the domestication policy seeks to create new opportunities for the development of micro and small enterprises; create more direct and indirect employment opportunities and attract new investments in medium and large enterprises.
He said the FCTA approved the facilitation of the adopted document on the domestication of Trade and Investment Policy in the FCT sent to the National Assembly for legislation.