Chiemelie Ezeobi


Angered by the shooting of a motorist by some officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)  attached to the Seme Border, a mob thursday attacked the Customs post, killing two officers.
But the Customs gave the casualty figure as one.

The attack came barely eight weeks after a Customs officer allegedly shot and killed a pregnant female passenger and three weeks after another person, one Friday Poku, was allegedly killed at the Seme Border.
THISDAY gathered that when the news of the shooting of the motorist, simply identified as Saturday, filtered into town, he was said to have been killed in the incident. This prompted some youths to take to the streets to protest the alleged recklessness of the Customs officers.

Although they did not get the officer suspected to have killed the motorist,  the mob intercepted some senior Custom officers who were on their way to work and allegedly killed two of them. They also burnt their car.
It was gathered that the protest by the youths, which spiralled out of control, was fuelled by the lingering feud between the community and the service personnel who are stationed there.

According to some residents, the killings of people of the community by Customs officers have become so rampant that the youths could no longer watch such an incident continuing with little or nothing being done to bring the suspected killers to book.
One of the community members who spoke to THISDAY on condition of anonymity, said the officers usually cover their tracks by branding their victims smugglers.

The angry youths, chanting war songs, were said to have barricaded the major

road during the protest. They later marched on the Customs office in the area during which they burned a patrol van.
It took the prompt intervention of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Seme Division, Mohammed Mu’Azu, a Chief Superintendent of Chief Police (CSP), and the border patrol unit of the Nigerian Army, headed by a colonel, to restore normalcy to the area.
However, Custom sources claimed that Saturday was shot while trying to escape after attempting to smuggle bags of rice across the border to Benin Republic.

The source told THISDAY that the suspected smuggler was not dead, but he was injured and was at the moment recuperating in an undisclosed hospital in the area.
But eyewitnesses said Saturday had engaged the yet-to-be identified Customs officer who shot him in an argument, which escalated and resulted in the officer opening fire on him.
But the Customs has debunked such claims, stressing that its men were attacked because they have conscientiously tried to stop smuggling in the area.

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(  version béninoise in le matinal)