The Delta State Police Command raised the alarm again on Friday that there were too many arms in the wrong hands in the state.
Commissioner in charge of the command, Mr. Udom Ekpoudom, sounded the concern while explaining the circumstances in which one of his Divisional Police Officers attached to the Ughelli Division, Mr. Nnamdi Ngwokor, a superintendent of police, and Mr. Elias Allison, an inspector, were shot dead by rioting community youths in Ughelli on Thursday.
A grief stricken Ekpoudom said the officers had been summoned to intervene in a fracas that had ensued between youths from Afisere and Ekiugbo, both communities in Ughelli South Local Government Area, over a very minor problem when they were ambushed, killed and their weapons taken away.
�Some Ekiugbo people were alleged to have assaulted an Afisere man. Afisere youths then wanted to retaliate and in the process, they commandeered vehicles, including cars belonging to a commercial bank,� he said.
The police chief said his Area Commander in Ughelli had requested reinforcements from his two DPOs in Ughelli North and South local governments.
The late officers were killed as they mobilised to the scene of the riots which had left many houses and property burnt on both communities.
Although 24 suspects have been arrested in connection with the mayhem, Ekpoudom said it was unfortunate that people resorted to violence over simple problems.
�How long shall we continue to kill one another? Every simple thing, they carry arms. The police went to save them but they turned against the police,� he said
Ekpoudom said the number of casualties in the riots could not yet be ascertained.
He noted, however, that no corpses of civilians had been recovered. Over a hundred armed riot policemen have been deployed in Ughelli, a gateway to Port Harcourt and the oil city of Warri .
Although preliminary investigations revealed that Afisere youths killed the officers, ballistics report is yet to confirm the type of weapon, but the police said the incident would not deter them from doing their jobs.
Ekpoudom denied that the police had begun a wave of indiscriminate arrests as a result of the incident.
�This is a very tempting period for this command. It will, however, not a change our mission, which is to bring down crime to the lowest, in the state,� he said.
The command headquarters wore a mournful look on Friday as word of the Ughelli tragedy spread, but Ekpoudom said he still had confidence in law abiding citizens.
He said he was satisfied with the cooperation the police had enjoyed from Deltans.