A police Sergeant attached to Access Bank branch at Ahiara Junction in Ahiazu Mbaise local government area of Imo State, simply identified as Paul Joseph, has reportedly committed suicide.
Joseph, who was said to be due to be promoted to the rank of inspector, was said to have shot and killed himself on Wednesday over alleged frustrations of life.
The incident, it was learned, drew the attention of a crowd, who stood in groups chatting and wondering what could have pushed the policeman to kill himself.
According to sources in the bank, the incident happened around 7.00 am when the bank staff were resuming work for the day, only for them to hear gunshot from their security house at the gate.
Upon enquiry, they discovered that the policeman had killed himself while his colleague was out to the junction buying food.
It was gathered from some police officers within the vicinity that Joseph, who was reported to have hailed from Taraba State, had in the last two weeks voiced frustrations over life and had been telling family and friends that he wanted to end his life and go to heaven.
One of the policemen, who spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity, said “Last week, we were all here when he called his wife around 4.00am in the morning and told her that he was tired of his life. In that call, he said it would be better for him to die and go to heaven.
“His wife, I learned, called one of his friends as well as a senior police officer and complained to them about the call from Joseph. But, I think they didn’t take her complaints seriously because her husband was about being promoted and had no reason to kill himself.
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“But it was yesterday being Tuesday that we noticed that he was serious about what he was saying when we were drinking at the bar and he said he would kill himself.
“The strange thing was that he didn’t quite say what his problem was. He was only saying he was tired of this life”.
His corpse, it was gathered, was ordered for evacuation by the police officer in charge of Ahiara Police Division to be deposited in the morgue.
All efforts by our correspondent to speak to the state commissioner of police, Rabiu Ladodo and the police spokesman, Orlando Ikeoku proved abortive as text messages sent to their phones were not responded to.
However, a man, who identified himself as the personal assistant to the CP answered the call put to his phone line later, telling our correspondent that the police boss would call back in few minutes.
But as of the time of filing this report, the CP was yet to return the call.
THE SUN, NIGERIA