The Ebonyi State Police Command on Monday confirmed the death of a police officer reportedly injured with stones by protesting commercial motorcycle operators (popularly known as Okada riders), Daily Sun reports.
The Okada riders last Thursday protested the alleged killing of their colleague by a policeman attached to the Anti-Kidnap Squad Unit of the Ebonyi State Police Command.
The deceased, Mr Ofim Ejike, who hailed from Amachi community in Abakaliki Local Government Area of the southeastern state was at about 8 p.m. on Wednesday night shot and killed by the policeman for allegedly refusing to give him a N50 bribe.
Confirming this to Daily Sun, the Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs Loveth Odah, said that the deceased, whose name she gave as Inspector Monday Ekon, died on Friday after efforts to revive him failed.
She disclosed that the State Police Command spent N1.6 million out of N3 million they were requested to deposit by the hospital management before the officer died.
“He died 24 hours after he was stoned. This happened in the early hours of Friday. He was stoned by the protesters around 10:32 a.m. that Friday.
“Inspector Monday Ekon was attached to the Federal Highway. They were on patrol in a convoy of nine vehicles and they were the people at the back. Stones from nowhere landed on his head. Maybe the artery cut off and blood circulation was no more adequate,” the spokeswoman speculated.
Efforts to get further information about the deceased policeman proved abortive as the police authority said the requested information was not immediately available.