“I didn’t expect that my husband will leave me like this. He was a struggling man and he went out in search of his daily bread and his body came back to us ridden with police bullets. My husband was not a violent man and it is hurting he died the way he did,” the grief stricken widow said.
She said it is most painful that she met her husband soaked in blood, battling for life at the surgical theatre of the Federal Medical Centre, Jalingo, and they could not share last moments together.
She said when she came from Karim Lamido where she has been working with the local government, her husband was already in a coma and when she later came to brief him, he made efforts to talk to her but he could not and relapsed back to unconsciousness which unfortunately resulted to his death.
She said she was expecting justice to be done in the case because her husband, who was a father of four children and four grand children, was murdered in cold blood.
According to her, the Taraba State Commissioner of Police, Mamman Sule had visited the family to condole with them and had promised to deal decisively with the constable that rained bullets on the late Iruohan.
Also, pastor of the late Iruohan, Rev. Cosmos Ikwe of the Redeemed Peoples Mission, Jalingo, said the family and friends of the late driver expect justice to be done in such a way that it will serve as a deterrent to other cops that are always trigger happy.
“We are all sad that the police who should be protecting lives could waste an innocent person’s life like that. We want justice to be done.
Besides, the police should be sanitized in such a way that there appears to be discipline in the system. Presently, it appears there are policemen who are indisciplined in the system in spite of their training, so there should be sanity and discipline,” he added.
Last Wednesday at noon, a policeman identified as Waziri, and who was alleged to be drunk fired bullets from his rifle at a pick-up van driver at a checkpoint in Jalingo, sparking protest from angry youths who tried to barricade the road with tyres and a bench.
Iruohan, driver of the vehicle with registration number XA 410 DGA was said to have been shot three times at the belly without provocation.
He was said to be carrying three passengers at the back, all of them Fulani women going inside town to sell nono.
One of the women said it appeared the driver did not notice the checkpoint at the Secretariat junction, near Police Area Command, and made to pass when the policeman fired his rifle at the driver three times.
When our correspondent visited the scene of the incident, fresh blood smeared the driver’s seat of the vehicle and a pool of blood was melting under the hot sun at the checkpoint.
Money, especially N50 notes were littered on the floor of the vehicle but it was not immediately established if the police demanded bribe from Iruohan.
Angry youths took over the road and tried to barricade it with tyres and a bench while policemen brandishing rifles at the nearby Area Command looked on.
The youths numbering over 20 were heard shouting in Hausa that they were ready to die if the policy of government was to kill the poor in Jalingo, apparently referring to the government ban on motorcycles, which they alleged has caused so much hardship to the poor.
An eyewitness, Prince Baba, said he heard three gunshots and when he rushed to the checkpoint, he saw the driver of the old, rickety pick-up van bent double and holding his belly as blood gushed out of the bullet wound.
He said it was very sad that the police will just look at a person and shoot without being provocked.
Sunday Donatus, a relation of the driver who accompanied him to the hospital said an eyewitness told him that Iruohan was shot at when he was asked to stop and pay a kind of revenue but could not stop because it appeared the brakes of his vehicle were failing.
But when our correspondent visited the scene of the shooting, he could observe that the pick-up van that Iruohan was driving did not pass the check point and was standing in the middle of the road. It was much later that the rampaging youth pushed it aside.
The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Amos Olaoye, said it was an accidental discharge and unintentional homicide by the constable.
He however said investigations into the matter were ongoing and if the constable was found culpable, he would be dismissed and charged to court.
Iruohan who hails from Umuahia in Abia State has lived in Jalingo for the past 35 years and family members said he had never quarreled with anybody.
