Recent videos posted on X by random Nigerian users at about 1:05 pm (GMT +1) on Monday, March 18 have revealed the chaos reported to be happening at Okpanam Road axis, Midwifery, in Asaba, Delta State.
One of the videos had revealed a scene where several people –reputed to be men– held long unconfirmed weapons and threw what looked like stones at a direction that was not properly shown in the video.
In another video, some policemen from the Delta State Command were shown firing at the protesters.
In a reaction to the wave of questions regarding the situation of things in Asaba, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, had taken to his X page to announce that the officers seen in the video were deployed to control a protest against a state task force.
He had posted:
“They are policemen deployed to quell an ongoing protest against one of the State taskforce in Asaba pls.”
The cause of the protest alleged to be happening is yet to be revealed at the time of filing this report but Edafe’s reaction had garnered backlash from Nigerian netizens who felt the officers acted recklessly while carrying out their duty.
The common question on the lips of X users had been why the Force personnel had been shooting directly at their targets instead of at the air. Could this be a part of their assignment? And if so, why would such an order be given, especially seeing how there are other methods to quelling a protest.
This latest report is coming barely 24 hours after the Nigerian Army allegedly set Okuama community in the Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State on fire over the killing of 16 soldiers by community youths. The soldiers had allegedly been on a peace mission in the community before their deaths.
