Reps condemn Nigerian cab drivers' killings in US

The House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs on Tuesday condemned the killing of two Nigerian cab drivers in the United States of America. The isolated incidents took place in Washington DC and New York. The Chairman of the committee, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, described the killings as "gruesome." According to the committee, one of the deceased, Mr. Solomon Okoro, was shot dead in Washington DC by armed robbers. It observed that two weeks after the death of Okoro, another cab driver, Mr. Orji Ama-Uro, 54, was murdered in Brooklyn, New York. Ama-Uro, a native of Ekoli Edda in Ebonyi State, was was said to have been stabbed in the eye with an umbrella. The committee stated that the attack took place after the victim dropped off two passengers in Brooklyn on June 13. The passengers were a male and a female. The sharp point of the umbrella reportedly pierced the brain of Ama-Uro, who was later confirmed dead in an hospital. Part of a statement by Dabiri-Erewa in Abuja on Tuesday read, "The death of these two Nigerians who were out to earn their daily bread is really heart-rendering, worrisome and pathetic. "It is barbaric, inhuman and condemnable in all ramifications.