SMUGGLING FACE-OFF: BUS CONDUCTOR SHOT DEAD IN LAGOS

In the same vein, another eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the victim was not a smuggler but a transporter with a commercial bus, while at the scene a policeman from Oke-Odo Division, said that no official statement could be made until the arrival of the Divisional Police Officer.

The ugly development resulted in a protest by youths, who set bonfire under the bridge while as at the time of filing this report, there was no customs official at the scene to give an account of the incident but LASTMA officials were seen controlling vehicular traffic.

In reacting to the issue. Customs Public Relations Officer, Federal Operations, Ikeja, Jerry Attah, said the unit received a report of the incident from its patrol team, explaining that the team trailed a vehicle loaded with smuggled rice to Abule-Egba, a suburb of Lagos.

Attah said the customs men were mobbed by the smugglers who prevented the officers from carrying out their duties, just as he claimed that nobody was killed in the incident.

“On January 17, 2018, at about 05.30hrs, operatives of the Federal Operations Unit, acting on a tip-off, traced one LT Bus Loaded with unspecified bags of smuggled foreign parboiled rice from Sango Area and eventually stopped it at Abule Egba’,he said.

“Before he was finally halted at Abule Egba, the driver started shouting and making inciting comments that attracted mob action against the officers with different dangerous weapons such as broken bottles, stones and cutlasses’ Attah said.

“Obviously, he had driven to where he could get his associates to help attack the Customs Officers. Given support of the mob, he resisted lawful arrest and the other armed operatives fired shots in the air to disperse the raging mob but to no avail.

“As a responsible organisation, the officers retracted back to avoid any casualty. We appreciate and thank God that no life was lost as at the time of the confrontation, even though two of our officers sustained injuries’.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the fact that a smuggler has evaded scrutiny either by following unapproved route or compromising any officer does not guarantee that the smuggled item will not be seized anywhere it is found by patrol officers whose duty is to ensure compliance’ ’he declared