The Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Barr Chikwendu Kalu, has reacted to reports that he ordered his aide to shoot at some Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, officers at Aro -Ngwa axis of the Enugu Port- Harcourt express on Saturday.
Recall that reports had filtered that the speaker’s aide had shot two of the FRSC officers at the roadblock after they stopped the speaker.
Reacting to the incident, Barr Chikwendu Kalu, who spoke to newsmen at his residence in Umuahia, said his aide was only being overzealous adding that he only sent the police orderlies with his younger brother to find out who accosted his wife on her way to Aba before the ugly incident happened.
He said: “I received a distress call that while my wife was on her way to Aba with her friend and orderly, some officers of the FRSC accosted her car, ordered them to come out of her car and started hitting her car with their stick, and finally dragged out her chief details, who is equally a woman out of the car” he said.
“When I was informed of the incident, I sent my details to find out who the people in question were, because we thought the people on that uniform may not be right people, it was in the course of doing that the incident happened.
“I was informed that somebody sustained a gunshot injury and we been on top of the situation, trying to find out what really happened. But I want to say that with every sense of responsibility and humility that I’m well informed about the importance of human life, and equally aware of the provisions of section 33, sub-section (1) of the 1999 constitution as amended that forbids taking away one’s life, I’m equally aware of the sister provision of section 33 sub-section (2) of the same constitution on the mode a human life could be taken.
“I strongly condemn any over zealousness on the side of any security personnel be the person a member of the Police, Road Safety, the Army and Department of States services. I think I will be the last person to encourage it because it doesn?t augur well with State and the Country at large.
“I’m well informed enough to know that I don?t have the authority to order anybody to shoot and I can’t even encourage such an action, even in the highest degree of provocation, I think I will move to the law court as practicing lawyer, before I joined politics?”