Hyacinth Chinweuba
Hoodlums have attacked the Federal Operations Unit, FOU Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service after operatives intercepted a vehicle.
The spokesperson of the Zone, Theophilus Duniya stated that about 1338hrs of Wednesday, 17/03/2021. One of our patrol teams intercepted a Toyota SUV.
“On their way to the office, some hoodlums organized themselves, blocked the driver in an attempt to obstruct the movement of the vehicle to the office.
“They started stoning the officers and also struggled to disarm one of them.
“In the pandemonium that ensued, one of the hoodlums got injured.
“The team was able to demobilize the hoodlums and moved the vehicle to the office”.
In a similar development, the Nigeria Customs Service has commenced investigation into how a clearing agent sustained a gunshot injury on Wednesday in Mile 2 area of Lagos.
According to the PTML Spokesperson, Mohammed the victim was immediately assisted to a hospital for treatment and that he is responding to treatment. He added that a protest that ensued at the PTML premises by agents was also brought under control by a combined team of customs officers and soldiers.
He also added that his leg was not amputated as reported by an online publication as such misinformation could trigger avoidable crises
Duniya had earlier stated that some officers of the FOU stopped the car driven by the wounded agent for routine check to ascertain it’s duty payment status and were resisted while attempting to move the vehicle to the Ikeja office of the FOU.
He added that the field officers reported an attempt to disarm them in the course of resisting movement of the vehicle from Mile 2 where the incident happened.
Meanwhile the Tin-Can Island Ports Commands Spokesperson, SC Uche Ejesieme stated that the service have been painstakingly following developments and make bold to clarify based on credible intelligence that there was nothing like amputation following the unfortunate incident”
“We reliably learnt that the wound was dressed and victim recuperating, while we regret the unfortunate incident, we can assure you that investigation is ongoing to ascertain both the remote and immediate cause with a view to averting future occurrence”
“Additionally and without holding brief, I think we should tune down the impression that the incident was as a result of refusal to bribe operatives. Like i mentioned earlier and from the various clips we watched, particularly the interview by Mr Utomi and others, I never heard any of the eye witness accounts mentioned bribe”
“what I heard was that the driver was trying to park and probably the Operatives thought he was trying to beat the routine checks, but this is not in any way an attempt to justify but to put the records straight as it were” Ejesieme concluded.
Though the Chairman of Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents ANLCA, PTML Chapter, Otunba Oyebola was reported that his association will get to the root of the matter.
He said his leadership will ensure adequate protection for all members and will follow up on the matter.