One dead, 100 shot over battle for IGR in Anambra

This is not www.odogwublog.com report but it is circulating online though little investigation we did as odogwublog.com did not portray it same but something happened, hence we bring it to you......
One Okada operator has been shot dead in Awka, the Anambra state capital, while about one hundred others escaped with severe bullet wounds as they now battle for their lives in various private hospitals in parts of the state in the on-going raging war amongst some illegal revenue collectors allegedly sponsored by top government functionaries in the state.
The ugly incident which has now spread from Awka to other parts of the state including Onitsha, Ogidi, Nkpor, Nnobi, Nnewi, Agulu, Ekwulobia, Oba, Ozubulu, Obosi and Ihiala is already being hijacked by some mercenary armed and dangerous gangs.
These gangs, according to our sources were highly motivated and buoyed to unleash untold mayhem on any real or imagined targets by the presence of security agents in their entourage whenever they set out their daily operations.
In a save-our-souls plea by one severely injured okada operator from his hospital bed appealed to Gov Willie Obiano, who he described as “action man” to come to their rescue from those he called “heartless money mongers controlling the Okada/Keke transport in the state”.
The young man in his mid twenties who gave his name as John Ugwuoke (alias ‘Little Johnny’)from Igboeze in Enugu state and father of two said he was shot and badly wounded in November in Awka alongside others because they refused to purchase two different IGR daily receipts from two of the many feuding private revenue collectors.
He noted that the only language those people understands was money. “Because when we tried to explain to them our plight and tendered the daily N100 receipts we had obtained that fateful morning at different locations within the capital city, they got infuriated that we ‘have not been buying their tickets all along’ and started beating us mercilessly”.
He disclosed that some paid, others who tried to run away were shot at at close range as confusion broke out and people started running in all directions for their dear lives.
From there, the gun-totting revenue collectors drove out in a flash, it was later we learnt they went to invade the office of the Road Transporters Employers Association of Nigeria(RTEAN) along the Enugu-Onithsa Highway who issued the offending receipt. There they shot at everybody in sight including passers-bye. They even captured some persons and labelled them all manner of things and got them detained in different police units at the Special Anti Robbery Squad, SCID and the anti-Cult unit in parts of the state even with their injuries without any medical attention whatsoever.
He disclosed that it was the deputy state chairman of RTEAN, Comrade Joe Nwabueze who was contacted by a younger brother of one of the other injured and detained okada operators that went round the entire state looking for where they were, that secured their bail.
Mr Ugwuoke admitted that one of their members named Aminu, from Benue state died in the encounter and that series of efforts by his people to get the attention of the governor on their plight have been unsuccessful.that they suspected some top functionaries in governor’s office, deputy governor’s office, in the Ministries of Commerce and that of Transport, SCID, listed leaderships of some markets in the state and some illegal trade unions found to have built a sleazy revenue fleecing cabal in the state.
Mr Nwabueze told journalists who went for clarification that RTEAN is the only trade union empowered by federal laws to supervise the welfare and matters concerning commuter transport in the country. But regretted that in Anambra all manner of pretenders and illegal groups run wild fleecing the state of its much-needed revenue. He noted that except something urgent was done more lives may be lost by the ferocious illegal revenue operators.
He urged Gov Obiano to wade into the crisis and weed off named highly placed sticky fingers in his administration who were allegedly fueling the shady fraudulent revenue collection syndicate for themselves. It was worse that those were preventing the petitions from getting to the governor in the last one year when the obnoxious deals commenced.
He confirmed and collaborated Ugwuoke’s experience as what has been happening in the state. The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Dr(Mrs) Nkechi Nwogu urged citizens to report such unwholesome acts to her for immediate action. She was dazed to hear about some ridiculous names like ‘Nkechi’s revenue’, ‘Mama Chinedu’, ‘Chairman’, and ‘Landlord’ as some of the sub-head accounts for which revenue were being collected daily by faceless agents.
She told journalists during an advocacy visit by the Justice development and Peace Commission(JDPC) of the Ecclesiastical Province of the Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha paid her a visit in her office.
Courtesy newsflashnaija