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ENUGU— The embattled General Superintendent of Assemblies of God Church, Rev. Paul Emeka, has alleged that a combined team of the police and army, Wednesday, brutalized his church members in Enugu.

Emeka said the police working on the instruction of Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Danmalam Mohammed, invited the soldiers from 82 Division, who allegedly combined forces to pummel and teargas his church members at the church national headquaters in Enugu.

Emeka accused the security agencies of taking sides with a faction of the warring church members to eject them from the church headquarters without any valid court order or declaration to do so.

He challenged the agencies to produce the authority they relied upon to commit impunity on unarmed and defenceless church members.

Both the police and the army, however, said they were at the church premises to maintain law and order and denied any wrong doing.

It was S-Court matter —Army

Deputy Director, Army Public Relations of 82 Division in Enugu, Col. Sagir Musa, however, said that nobody was brutalized by the army personnel.

Musa said: “You might be aware that the church has been in court for sometime now, a Supreme Court judgment was given in favour of a party and I learnt the police in Enugu were there to enforce the court order.

“Our patrol team was also within the general area, in a staging position to assist the police in case of impending breakdown of law and order. It seems that did not go down well with the losing party.”

We only gave protection to court officials —Police

On its part, Enugu State Police Command through its spokeman, Ebere Amaraizu, said the police never evicted any factional member of the church but provided protection for court officials it claimed were there to execute a function.

Amaraizu said: “The Police provided security to the officers of the Supreme Court and that of the state High Court, who were in Enugu to perform their lawful duties at the secretariat of the Assemblies of God Church and that was based on the need not to give way to violence and eventual loss of lives and destruction of property.

“If security were not given to the court officials, there would have been loss of lives and destruction of property since the court officials had encounter with the other factional members of the church, who were already resisting the court officials before the intervention of policemen.”

“Our concern is maintenance of peace and prevention of any disorder that will bring about breakdown of law and order as well as protection of lives and property.”

“Police operatives therefore accompanied the court officials for the purposes of security and for them to perform their functions.”

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