From Ameachi Prosper (The New Diplomat’s Delta Correspondent)
A consultant physician at the Central Hospital Warri, Delta State, Dr. Raphael Onyemekehia, has claimed he was forced by soldiers attached to 3 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Effurun, to swim inside gutter for 45 minutes while on an official duty.
The senior medical doctor who spoke to journalists in Warri yesterday, alleged that, “the soldiers who took turn to beat me, kept me inside the mosquitos and germs infected water for over 45 minutes until a senior military officer rescued me.”
A military patrol personnel had last Saturday reportedly assaulted the medical doctor while monitoring the 48 hours curfew imposed by the state government. The incident happened along the Effurun-Warri Road at Effurun in Uvwie LGA.
The New Diplomat learnt that the soldiers allegedly forced the doctor to swim and bathe inside the murky water at gunpoint while heading for work.
Meanwhile, the state chairman of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Emmanuel Nwose, while confirming the incident to newsmen yesterday, threatened that doctors in the state would down tools if nothing was done about the incident.
Nwose, while condemning the assault, demanded that the perpetrators of the ugly act should be fished out and be prosecuted by the military authorities to serve as a warning to overzealous military personnel.
