In Port Harcourt, pregnant widow of slain policeman begs Police, Army authorities to arrest her husband’s killers THIRTY-YEAR –OLD Peter Okeke, a Police Constable with the Rivers State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had left home to supervise an on-going filling station project located at Onne in Onne Local Council of the state.
As he hugged his sons and kissed his pregnant wife, Beatrice, goodbye, there was nothing whatsoever to suggest the enormity of the tragedy that would befall the young family before the day was over.
Constable Okeke was allegedly shot dead by a soldier, a few hours later, following an argument over a roadblock. Sources told The Guardian the road had been barricaded by RCC, a construction company doing major rehabilitation work on the road. A group of soldiers drove onto the barricaded road and assumed that Constable Okeke had blocked it, ordered him to dismantle the barricade. An argument ensued when Okeke told the soldiers he did not barricade the road and if it would be opened, then the workers of the construction company were in a better position to do so.
The soldiers became angry and jumped down from their Hillux truck and started beating the Constable. “As they were beating him, he was shouting, telling them he was a policeman and that they should please not kill him. “But it was of no use as one of the soldiers shot him at close range and they drove off.” Okeke died while being rushed to hospital. According to an eyewitness who pleaded anonymity: “The filling station where Constable Okeke was, was close to a road under construction by RCC. “When the soldiers arrived and found the road blocked because of the on-going reconstruction by RCC, they o
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