Death on the highway

•The killing, on the Sagamu-Benin Expressway, by a Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) trooper, must be probed and punished

It reads like a bizarre tale, which started when a group of Nigerians, reportedly travelling from France, arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on the evening of February 16.   The next morning, travelling by road from Lagos to Benin via Iyare Motors, a private public bus shuttle, they encountered officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Federal Operations Unit, at the Sagamu intersection, of the Sagamu-Benin Expressway.

As one of the passengers, Mr. Oliver Joseph, narrated what happened, the occupants of the vehicle had been asked to disembark by the Customs men.  He not only asked where they were coming from, he also expressed the intention to check the luggage in the bus, one by one. Even before the search commenced, the driver who had reportedly been called aside by one of the Customs men, returned and said that a bribe of N5, 000 was being demanded to allow the vehicle to go, an amount he claimed not to have.

Apparently not inclined to pay the alleged bribe, the passengers agreed to have their luggage searched, with one of them insisting he would record the operation with his mobile phone, to prevent contraband material from being deposited among their items. The effort to do so must have provoked a struggle as the passenger reportedly refused to surrender the phone as demanded by one of the Customs men.

In his eyewitness account, Mr. Oliver Joseph said, “The officer just took some steps back, cocked his gun and fired. Immediately he fired, a man fell down…We were 10 passengers in the bus and when we took a head count, we were complete. There was blood all over the victim’s face, so we could not recognise him”. As it turned out most strangely, however, the unintended victim of the gunshot was one Godwin, who lived in a nearby community and used to supply water to the Customs base on the highway.

The Public Relations Officer of the NCS, Mr. Joseph Attah, blamed the incident on “an attempt to obstruct the lawful performance of duty by passengers of a commercial bus suspected to be carrying bales of used clothing”. He stressed that “preliminary findings indicate that it was during the skirmishes and struggle to disarm the officer that the rifle discharged and the bullet hit the friend of the Customs, who lost his life”.

Mr. Abimbola Oyeyemi, Public Relations Officer of the Ogun State Police Command, confirmed that one of the Customs officers on the scene was rescued by police operatives from being lynched by an angry mob, and taken to hospital.

The passengers involved in the fracas, however, reportedly boarded their vehicle and left the scene before the arrival of the police. This is disturbing.

It is certainly critical to ascertain from which destination they had arrived Nigeria and what items were contained in the passengers’ luggage. What was responsible for their alleged hostility to the luggage in the vehicle being searched by operatives of the NCS if they had nothing to hide?

On the other hand, did the Customs men demand a bribe of N5,000 as alleged by the driver of the bus? If they also had no ulterior motive, why were the NCS men averse to one of the passengers filming the search of the luggage with his mobile phone? Under what circumstances did an innocent Nigerian lose his life as a result of the gunshots by the Customs operative?

Only a thorough investigation both by the NCS and the police will ensure that the truth is uncovered in the interest of justice for the deceased, the integrity of the NCS and the image of Nigeria, especially as the video of the incident had gone viral on the internet.