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Friday’s attack on a team of top officials of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps [NSCDC], led by the corps’ Commandant-General, Ade Abolurin, by a police inspector is a continuation of a series of attacks on men and officers of the NSCDC by personnel of the Nigerian Police, video and photo evidence have shown. In 2013, the civil defence claimed that two of its men were shot and killed in Ikorodu after police officers attacked them in what it described as a commando attack. The civil defence said police officers ambushed and opened fire on men of the anti-vandal squad of the Lagos State Command of the NSCDC, killing two men on the spot while others escaped with gunshot wounds in the Ikorodu axis of Lagos. The men, who were killed, were Gabriel Adaji and Innocent Akegbe. The civil defence authorities said that the policemen subsequently released the vandals that its men had arrested. It is not clear if those alleged to have carried out the attack were ever apprehended and prosecuted. Also in March, Adeduyite Blesssing of the NSCDC and Afolabi Dorcas of Nigerian Prisons Services, NPS, were beaten to a pulp by police officers in Kubwa, Abuja, the civil defence said. The civil defence said the officers attracted the irk of the policemen in mufti who accused them of driving recklessly after they asked him to identify himself. “This led to a serious argument between them, in the process some Police officers in near-by Police Station in Kubwa-FCT intervened on the matter and they supported their colleagues in beaten down both officers of NSCDC & NPS to a state of comma, after bushed them with Gun, a police officer even threating to shoot them to death and nothing will happen since they (NSCDC) failed to learn from their lesson in Lagos where two of their officers were killed by Police & nothing came out of it. He even boosted that Officer Mathew that Killed them then are back to the station and walking freely on the street of Lagos,” the civil defence said in statement. According to the statement, the officers were detained and released 24 hours later after the intervention of very senior police officers. While conducting anti-vandalism inspection in the Ikorodu area of Lagos, with a team of officials from the army, the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other related offences, ICPC, and the Office of the Attorney-General, Mr. Abolurin were accosted by a team of gun-wielding police officers, believed to have been invited by some of the suspected vandals. A police inspector then threatened to open fire on his team for daring to conduct checks at the site, the corps said. The spokesperson of the civil defence corps, Emmanuel Okeh, said the police inspector, brandishing an AK47 riffle, challenged Mr. Abolurin and made it clear to him the police were in charge, and that he had no business visiting the site. Despite photo evidence corroborating the claims by the civil defence, the spokesperson of the Lagos State command of the Police, Lelme Kolle, denied that the inspector threatened to shoot Mr Abolurin. The police spokesperson, Emmanuel Ojukwu, later said the police was investigating the alleged attack. But from the manner previous clashes between policemen and civil defence officers were handled by police authorities, the NSCDC does not believe the erring police officers would ever be brought to book. Watch the video below.
The Pictures below show a history of clashes between Nigerian Police and The Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps.
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