The sociocultural organisation of the Igbo people, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, said the Igbo were not responsible for Thursday’s attack on a police station and the killing of a policeman in Oyigbo Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Some hoodlums had invaded a new police unit set up for operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Oyigbo, vandalised facilities in the building and killed a SARS operative with a machete.

Speaking with our correspondent on the incident, the South-South Coordinator of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Wing, Chief Chinedu Ugwa, appealed to the police to investigate the incident, saying claims linking a particular Igbo ethnic group to the killing were false and should be discountenanced by the public.

Ugwa stated that while it was wrong for anyone to take the law into their own hands, no group should be punished or victimised for a crime they neither committed nor knew anything about.

He said, “We condemn the killing of any police officer or anybody for that matter. Nobody has the right to take the life of another. Whatever that is happening in Rivers State (referring to the attack) should be investigated and anyone found guilty should be fished out, arrested and prosecuted.

“It should be on record that Ohanaeze Ndigbo is not the same as the Indigenous People of Biafra and I am not speaking for them. But it should be known that Ohanaeze is the umbrella body protecting every Igbo man all over the world.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo in the South-South is condemning the killing of any police officer. The police should investigate, arrest and prosecute anyone who kills an officer. Whatever happened in Rivers State should be investigated. They should leave the Igbo people out of it. This is not about the Igbo people. It is about the security of a state.