EXCLUSIVE: 24-hrs after Abule Egba incident, Customs anti-smuggling Team confront Smugglers, mobs in Ota
Barely 24 hours after the dreadful encounter between Operatives of the Nigerian Customs service and some smugglers in Abule Egba area of Lagos state which led to the death of one of the smugglers, another clash occurred early this morning in Ota, Ogun State which led to a woman injured by a stray bullet.
Newsclickng.com reliably gathered from an eye witness who saw the encounter by the anti-smuggling detachment of customs which trailed and attempted to pin a smuggled vehicle within Ota town which saw the gathering of mobs who were spoilt for a showdown with the operatives. It was gathered impeccably by newsclickng.com that the team were operatives of the Comptroller General of Customs HQ Anti-Smuggling Compliance Team.
As the angry mob surged towards the customs team to prevent them from confiscating the smuggled vehicle, they operatives were said to have opened fire which in the process hit a woman who was passing by who it was revealed is currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in the town.
The rowdy and tense atmosphere with rumoured death of the woman who was hit by stray bullet, attracted the attention of the nearby Police Patrol Team who guarded and led the operatives to the station to prevent escalation.
When contacted by Newsclickng.com, the Spokesman State Command of the Nigerian Customs, Asc. Abdullahi Maiwada confirmed that the incident happen this morning.
According to Maiwada, “the Officers were on a trail of a suspected smuggled vehicle, in the process they were mobbed by some unpatriotic members of the public. The Officers were left with no option than to shoot sporadically in the air to disperse the crowd and in the process, the said woman was brushed by a stray bullet”.
He denied arrest of the operatives by the Police, rather according to the customs spokesman: “The Customs Officers were in police station for safety to avoid mob attack and not the insinuation that they were arrested by the police”. We spoke with the relative of the woman’s husband and the Doctor attending to her – and they both confirmed that the woman is responding to treatment.
Recall that President Muhammed Buhari in his 2018 budget presentation and the National Assembly last year had vowed to empower the Nigerian customs to fight smuggling and save the national economy of huge job losses and earn for government the much needed funds to expend on critical infrastructure to grow the Nigerian State.
