Newspaper Vendors, Distributors protest killing of member in Abuja
By Sanni Onogu, Abuja
Members of the Abuja Newspaper Vendors Association and the Abuja Newspaper Distributors Association (ANDA), on Friday, demonstrated against the killing of one of their members in Abuja.
The deceased, Ifeanyi Emmanuel Okeke, alias Elechi, was said to have died after he was hit on the head by bullets allegedly fired by one of the security details in the convoy of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, in Abuja on Thursday.
Elechi was said to have died at the National Hospital Abuja where he was taken to for medical attention after the shooting incident.
The newspaper vendors and distributors protested peacefully at the Area 1 Roundabout calling for justice for their slain member.
Some of the placards carried by the protesters read: “#Vendors lives matter, Vendors are also human beings, Elechi’s death must not be in vain and Justice 4 Elechi,” among others.
The Chairman, Abuja Newspaper Vendors Association, Comrade Etim Iwara, told the Nation Correspondent during the protest that Elechi was planning a naming ceremony for his new born baby before he met his untimely death.
Iwara said: “Another thing that was so sad was that he called me in the early hours of Friday to inform me about his wife who just put to bed and told me that the naming ceremony will be taking place on Saturday and we received that news with great joy and we planned to be with him and his family without knowing that this sad event was coming.”
Police deny shooting vendor in AbujaIwara added: “He was doing his usual service to the nation which is information dissemination. He was not having a weapon with him. He was not attacking anybody.
“They were appreciating the VIPs and also showing them their wares and in response the Speaker was there to appreciate them just for an unsuspected security officer to kill him for no reason.
“So we are demanding for justice. We are calling on the Federal Government to bring the police officer who unjustly took the life of Elechi, a newspaper vendor, in broad day light, to book.
“We are also calling for compensation for the family of the deceased vendor. We are calling for a stop to brutality by police officers against Nigerian citizens.
“Of course, Elechi was killed where he was fighting for his daily bread. He was hustling to put food on the table. He was not a miscreant in the street. He was a registered member of our association.
“So we are here to protest to ensure that all available entitlements or needs that will cause his memory to last in our hearts should be attended to by the Federal Government.
“We have to interface with the Federal Government to ensure that it is not just say and not do. The leadership of the Abuja Newspaper Vendors Association with other critical stakeholders in the media profession will work together to ensure that apart from justice, all that is needed to be accorded to the family is done with immediate effect.”
Speaking on how the incident happened, Iwara said: “I was called at about 3pm Thursday and given the sad news about the shooting of my member, Ifeanyi Emmanuel Okeke, aka Elechi, who sells newspapers at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.
“He had with him newspapers of Thisday, Leadership, Nation, Punch, Daily Trust and other newspapers. When they approached the convoy of the Honourable Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila.
“The Speaker attended to them in their usual manner of rapport and he gave them what he had. The vendors are used to these VIPs. While they sell newspapers to them they also do gestures like hailing them, just for an errant police or DSS officer, who alighted from one of the Hilux vans in the convoy of the Speaker, to shot him at very close range on the head.
“Immediately, he was evacuated to the National Hospital where he was placed on oxygen. We were all together on this issue, calling the attention of the government and calling for calm from our members not to take the law into their hands and they heeded to that prayer.
“And then we were also praying that God should keep him alive but not long ago, we received the shocking news of his demise at the National Hospital and his corpse has been deposited in the morgue. As I talk to you he is no more.”
