Cross River assembly speaker’s convoy opens fire on lecturer’s vehicle

The security attaches to the Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Eteng Jonah Williams, on Friday opened fire on the vehicle of one Mr. Asuquo Felix, a lecturer in the Cross River State College of Education, Akamkpa.

According to eyewitness report, the driver (Mr. Asuquo) drove a Toyota Corolla car with registration number; “KAM-325AY” from COE campus, Akamkpa to Calabar, in the company of 2 colleagues.

Nigerian Tribune found that Speaker’s convoy was running at high speed, overtaking Asuquo and other road users when the last vehicle in the convoy bashed Asuquo’s car and without slowing recourse to this altercation to examine the level of damage caused on Asuquo’s car, the Speaker’s convoy went on steadily and fastly.

Not happy with the lack of remorse, Asuquo decided to chase the convoy in a bid to get the Speaker’s attention.

Since the speaker’s convoy were on high vehicles and on high speed, Asuquo could not catch up until when the convoy eventually slowed down at Odukpani Junction where they both had a compulsory “go-slow” owing to the deplorable state of that road leading to the metropolitan city of Calabar.

On meeting-up with the convoy, Asuquo and his two lecturer colleagues in the car intercepted the convoy that they could demand for an apology and/or possible repairs of their car.

Unfortunately, the security personnel attached to the convoy hurried out, got Asuquo beaten, leaving him with torn clothes.

As if that was not enough, they destroyed his windscreen and went on to open fire on his four (4) vehicle tyres so he could not chase them further, after which, the Speaker and his convoy zoomed off.

The Press Secretary, Mr. Hope Obeten, when contacted explained how four unknown guys in a Toyota Corolla tried to attack the Speaker, safe for the security operatives who repelled the alleged planned attack.

According to Hope Obeten, “the guys attempted to break into the convoy somewhere at Akamkpa but did not succeed and when the backup vehicle (the last in the convoy) signaled the unknown guys to pull over their car, they obeyed. Hope said a misunderstanding broke and the guys harassed the only security personnel in the backup vehicle; to a point, they attempted to collect his gun.”

He explained that even when the harassed security personnel escaped to his car to catch up with the convoy, the unknown guys followed-up until at Odukpani Junction where the convoy slowed down due to the bad road condition.

At Odukpani Junction, Obeten said the unknown car overtook the convoy in a way that it wanted to stop its move. This, he said, alerted the security personnel who, themselves, block the unknown vehicle, came out and interrogated the driver and consequently opened fire at his vehicle’s tyres. “Of Course it is a security breach, so, they have to shoot at his tyres which is part of their job, because for the DSS, they need to protect their principal first,” Obeten said verbatim.

As for the destroyed windscreen, Obeten said the windscreen was destroyed when the unknown guys hit some vehicles in the convoy. He denied that their security personnel touched the guy’s windscreen.

Mr Asuquo Felix’s comment has not been captured as calls to his cell phones returned unanswered while this report was prepared. (Nigerian Tribune)