HURIDE Fumes As Peace Mass Kills Beggar in Onitsha, Refuses to Visit Family

By Izunna Okafor, Onitsha

The Human Rights, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders Foundation (HURIDE) has called for the punishment of the Boss and Management of the Peace Mass Transit over killing of a 15-year-old female beggar in Onitsha, Anambra State.

HURIDE made the call in statement signed and issued on Monday by its Executive Director, Dede Uzor A. Uzor, in which the group also unequivocally condemned the gruesome killing.

According to the statement, the said 15-year-old beggar was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver of Peace Mass Transit on April 29, 2022, along the Onitsha/Asaba Expressway, before Bridgehead; but the said driver did not stop, but zoomed off immediately until he was given a hot chase and eventually caught by the officials of the Anambra Road Traffic Management Agency (ATMA).

While alleging that about five other persons also sustained varied degrees of injuries that same day in the course of the accident, HURIDE also revealed that ever since then, the management of the transport company has never gone to see and commiserate with the family of the deceased over the killing of their daughter; nor has the company's management extended any form of formal condolences to the family, or even visit any of the five injured persons in the hospitals where they were hospitalised.

The group therefore called on the Anambra State Police Command not to allow those behind the killing to go scot-free.

The Human Rights Defenders also advised the state's Police Command to immediately set a machinery in motion to arrest all the people involved in the despicable and unfortunate killing of the girl and injuring of five others, to serve as a deterrent to other reckless drivers.

The statement partly reads: “Police should not allow any of the perpetrators to go unpunished in line with our extant laws.

“It was learnt that the matter was reported to the Bridgehead Police Station for investigation, and we learnt that no member of the company has identified with the diseased family.

"How could it be said that a driver killed a poor girl, injured five other people and escaped before he was caught by patriotic  citizens; and ever since then, the management of the transport company has not deemed it necessary to visit the bereaved family or hospital to see five others who were injured in the process?

“This is unethical, atrocious and  insensitive. It is man's inhumanity to man. This set of people ought to have been in prison by now.”

Efforts to get the reactions of the state's Police Spokesperson, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu on the matter was unsuccessful, as calls to his phone number were not connecting, as at the time of this publication.