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The Nigerian Police Force has dismissed a Sergeant identified as Lucky Orji for allegedly instigating a mob to kill four students of the University of Port Harcourt on October 5, 2012 in Aluu in Rivers State.
Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, told Channels Television on Wednesday morning during a breakfast programme, “Sunrise,” that Orji’s dismissal followed Tuesday’s confession by one of the suspected killers, David Chinasa Ugbaje.
The students were set upon by a mob in Aluu, a community close to the university, and lynched.
They were later identified as 19-year-old Lloyd Toku ( 200 level Civil Engineering); 18-year-old Ugonna Obuzor (200 level Geology student); 20-year-old Chiadika Biringa, (200 level Theatre Arts student); and Tekena Erikena, a 20-year-old a diploma (Technical) student by the management of the university.
The police, on Monday, had named Coxson Lucky, alias Bright, as the mastermind of the lynching.
Lucky, who was said to owe one of the students an undisclosed sum of money, reportedly raised the alarm that the students were robbers when they went to his house to demand for the money.
The mob, which converged on the venue of the altercation, then beat and burn the students to death.
Mba said the discovery was made after the police carried out an internal investigation, adding that he would also be tried for murder.
The dismissed policeman and a colleague were alleged to have stumbled upon the angry mob beating the students, Mba said.
“The officers were not even sent to the scene; he (sergeant) went on his own, outside the code of conduct and professional ethics of the job.
“One was professional to ask the mob to stop and the other asked them to continue,” he said.
He said the fact that the police were prepared to prosecute Orji was a measure of its resolve to put an end to all forms of impunity in the Nigerian Police
He said mob attacks were not peculiar to Nigeria, adding, “It is something we must work together to review. Nigerians must not be quick to heap the blame on the police alone.”
He insisted that, like other agencies in the country, the police force also had persons of questionable character.
“f you recruit an officer, the person carries the family value around. We need reorientation from the families and to the various worship centres.
“We must look at the content our mass media is dishing out, we have to review all this,” Mba said.
