The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has been in the news once again for all the wrong reasons – the shooting of an unarmed civilian, Mr. Godwin Onoja.
The incident, which happened last month, occurred when a member of the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) had accosted the driver of a bus conveying some travellers to Benin City from Lagos at the Sagamu intersection of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
An eyewitness was to explain that the Customs officer had delayed the bus, which belonged to a popular Benin-based transport company, because the driver had refused to part with N5,000 as being demanded by the uniformed official.
One of the passengers, Mr. Oliver Joseph, who lives in France, said he and the other travellers in the bus had been delayed by the Customs officer because of the refusal of their driver to part with money. Joseph stated that when they got to the Sagamu intersection of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, some Customs officials asked the driver to stop.
The eyewitness said: “…The officer just took some steps back, cocked his gun and fired. Immediately he fired, a man fell down. Before we knew it, one of the two Customs officers in green pullover ran into the bush, leaving the others. We were 10 passengers in the bus and when we took a headcount, we were complete. There was blood all over the victim’s face, so we could not recognise him. “The officer tried to run away, but we held him by the uniform insisting that he had to follow us to the nearest police station.”
Sadly this is not the first time that such incidence has happened leading to the killing of quite a number of innocent Nigerians. Although the NCS’ Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, described the incident as “quite unfortunate”, but this will not be the first time that the Service would be involved in such dastardly acts. For instance in March 2017, one Taofiq, a taxi driver, was killed at Kobape Town, Abeokuta, Ogun State for allegedly carrying three bags of rice suspected to have been smuggled.
On January 17 last year, trigger-happy operatives of the Service killed a man at Oko-Oba, Lagos. The operatives were said to have opened fire after they sighted a bus suspected to be carrying smuggled rice.
The officers then took to their heels. Hardly had the dust settled over the Oko-Oba killing when in the same month, one Bukola Olugunna, a pregnant woman, was shot and fatally wounded by Customs operatives on the trail of suspected smugglers at Iyana-Iyesi in Ado-Odo/Ota LGA in Ogun State.
In November 2018, the Nigeria Police arrested seven Customs officers for shooting indiscriminately and killing one Mrs. Patience Oni near Badagry roundabout in Lagos State. And a month before the latest killing at Sagamu, on January 21, to be precise, five innocent Nigerians, among who was one Jamiu Bello, a fresh graduate of Tai Solarin University of Education, were felled at Yewa Community at Owode-Yewa in Yewa South LGA of Ogun State when they raided a house suspected to be harbouring contraband goods.
The list of these needless killings and maiming is endless and inexhaustible.
Incidentally, the unit set up to lead the charge against smuggling in the country, the Federal Operations Units (FOU), which is headquartered in four zones – Zone A, Lagos for the South-West, FOU Zone B at Kaduna, FOU Zone C at Owerri and FOU Zone D at Bauchi – are actually the main culprits when it comes to the killing of unarmed Nigerians.
In as much as we condemn smuggling or anything that may impact negatively on the economy, we strongly believe that there must be a better way of cracking down on such vices without leaving tears and blood in the process. Besides, is shooting to kill the only option available to the Customs operatives in trying to checkmate the activities of smugglers?
Can they not be properly trained in the use of the arms they bear so that in the event that they do not have any other option than to use force, it will be done without leaving the suspect dead?
While we applaud the prompt action of the Comptroller General of the NCS, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) in setting up a panel led by the Zonal Coordinator, Zone A to investigate the latest killing, we will also like to stress that the panel’s findings should not be swept under the carpet and any officer found culpable should be punished.
Finally, we will also like to appeal to the Comptroller General, that as a matter of urgency, he should take steps to not only retrain his men on the proper use of firearms but more importantly the importance of the sanctity of life – we have just had too many innocent Nigerians killed by trigger happy men in uniform.
