Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
A rights group, Human Rights, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders Foundation (HURIDE) has urged the police in Anambra State to prosecute a commercial driver who allegedly crushed to death a female road-side beggar in the State.
Ikengaonline learnt that the commercial bus driver was on top speed when he knocked down the 15 years old teenager, injuring five others before his attempt to escape was resisted by traffic officers on duty.
The group in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Dede Uzor A. Uzor, in Onitsha condemned the killing of the teenager and urged that the driver behind the killing should not be allowed to go unpunished.
According to the group, taking the right action will serve as a deterrent to drivers who drive recklessly on the road.
The statement said that the deceased was killed by the hit-and-run driver along the Onitsha-Asaba expressway before Bridgehead.
It said the driver did not stop until he was pursued and arrested by officials of Anambra Road Traffic Management Agency (ATMA).
The group regretted that the management of the said transport company, since the incident which took place on 29 April, “has neither met with the family of the deceased nor extended any formal condolences to them.”
It called on Anambra State Police Command to immediately set its machinery in motion to arrest the killer-driver involved in the killing of the girl.
“Police should not allow any of the perpetrators go unpunished in line with our extant laws.
“We learnt that the matter was reported to the Bridgehead Police Station for investigation, and we learnt that no member of the company had gone to identify with the family of the deceased.
“How could a driver kill a poor girl, injure five other people and escape before he was caught and since then the management of the transport company has not deemed it fit 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. These set of people ought to have been in prison by now,” the human right group fumed.”
