Ogun Customs allege attacks on officers as State calls for truce

 

The Ogun Area Comptroller of Nigeria Customs Service, Peter Kolo, has raised the alarm that smugglers and their supporters are using pump action rifles, AK47, local charms and some other dangerous weapons to attack his officers in the border areas of the state.

Kolo lamented that armed attacks were responsible for the casualties mostly recorded at the border areas of the state.

The Area Comptroller said this during a press briefing on the scorecard of NCS Ogun 1 Area Command held at Idi-Iroko part of the state.

The customs boss, however, reiterated that the attacks on the NCS operatives would not deter them from performing their legitimate duties.

He said, “We wish to reiterate that the sustained attacks on operatives of NCS and other sister agencies will not deter us from the continued performance of our legitimate duties in Ogun State.

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“On several occasions, our officers, while performing their lawful duties, come under sustained harassment and attacks from daredevil smugglers and their supporters/sympathisers, who use pump action rifles, AK 47 rifles, local charms and other dangerous weapons.

“This sometimes results to casualties on either side or both. For instance, on October 12, 2020, one officer, AIC Solomon Alagye, was killed and another officer of the Service CAI (T) Taiwo Odeyemi is still missing up till today after an attack on their patrol team on December 3, 2020 by these criminal gangs.”

Meanwhile, the Ogun State Government has expressed displeasure over the spate of extra judicial killings by operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service, in the state.

Secretary to the State Government, Tokunbo Talabi, while addressing aggrieved youths who stormed the governor’s office complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, to protest loss of life and various degrees of injury, inflicted on their colleagues during a face-off with Customs officials, said the Dapo Abiodun led-administration would evolve more strategies, to avert recurring clashes between security agencies and citizens.

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This, according to a statement by the Press Officer to the SSG, Kehinde Balogun, is coming on the heels of a recent encounter between some youths and security operatives along Siun-Abeokuta-Sagamu Interchange, where a life was claimed to have been lost and four others badly injured.

The State scribe who was accompanied by other top government functionaries including the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Alh. Shuaib Salisu, Special Adviser on Security, AIG Olusola Subair (rtd) and the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alh. Waheed Odusile, among others, noted that the state government frowned at such huge loss, assuring that investigations would be conducted to unravel those behind the killing, which he described as a ‘dastardly act’.