Policeman manning VIP home, teargases couple for not putting off car haze lights in Delta

By Ovasa Ogaga

An unidentified gun-wielding policeman manning a private residence on Monday night in Warri, Delta State, allegedly sprayed teargas on the faces of a couple-to-be for leaving the haze light of their car on.

 

The incident occurred at Uti Street, along PTI road at about 8 pm amid the COVID-19 lockdown curfew regime in the state.

 

The victims, Mr Kenneth Okiedesan and Miss Purity Ederhi Akporagbarhe wanted to do some money transaction at a POS stand in a house in the street.

 

Mr Okiedesan, who’s asking the Commissioner of Police, Delta State, Muhammed Inuwa to fish out the culprit for discipline, told journalists that he drove his Toyota Corolla car with his fiancee to use the POS at a nearby house and parked his car with the fog light on by the road.

 

He said while he was returning to his car after the transaction, a cop guiding the private house belonging to a wife of a traditional ruler, walked up to him and asked him why he gazed the full lights of the car on them.

 

He said he explained to the policeman, who was in mufti but holding a gun, that the car is an American automatic model usually has its fog lights on except the engine is switched off, adding that the lights on were not full lights but fog lights.

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The cop, whom he said insisted that the fog light was focused on his security post, got angry, pulled out his teargas from his waist and sprayed it in the face of Kenneth, and not done, went to his fiancée who was already in the car and sprayed it on her face, too.

 

Done with the act, the policeman, whose jurisdiction should be within his beat, fled the scene, leaving behind the couple to grope in pains.

 

Mr Kenneth, speaking exclusively to journalists on Tuesday morning, narrated the encounter thus:

 

“I went to do POS withdrawal in my street and a policeman allocated to one compound, I was driving a corolla car and the lights of the car would automatically come on when you switch on the car.

 

“When I was doing the withdrawal, nobody came to meet me to tell me that the light was entering their eyes.

 

“When I was through, I went into my car and as I was about to drive off,  a policeman putting on mufti just walked to me.

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“Having seen him, I asked if there was any problem and he asked me if was stupid that why was I putting light in the policemen eyes?

 

“I then told him that the light was not full light, so there’s no way it would have entered their eyes and he asked me if I was crazy and why was I talking to him like that.

 

“Somebody that was buying something not too far away then said, “ah O boy, tell am say make he no vex.”

 

“I replied to the person that I can’t apologize to him because I didn’t commit any crime. I wasn’t even through with what I was saying when he brought out teargas and sprayed it on my face and body.

 

“After doing that, he ran away. I couldn’t breathe, could not open my eyes, I began to cry. For like an hour, I couldn’t breathe.

 

“Assuming I was an asthmatic patient, I would have died. I then begged the guy I did the POS withdrawal from to help me bring out my phone and video me.”

 

When asked if he could identify the policeman, Kenneth he knew him at one private compound near where I live, adding “He is guiding a house owned by one Agbarho king.”

 

The video depicting the agony they went through from the couple was obtained

 

In the video, the couple could be seen groping and betraying pains to have their eyes restored from the peppery teargas.

 

The identity of the erring cop and where he was posted from could not ascertain as of the time of filing the report.

 

Meanwhile, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Onome Onovwakpoyeya, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), when contacted on phone, bemoaned how policemen have fallen of armed-bearing men for not being proactive to self-defence.

 

“Our men are being attacked every now and then under different guises. So, that’s their own precautionary way of saving themselves.

 

“If you want to withdraw money, what stops you from switching off the car engine and you know that criminals do not always look it,” DSP Onovwakpoyeya averred.