“Like A Scene From Hollywood War Film” – Eye Witness Tells Customs Scary Chase On Sunday In Ogun

By Kehinde Akinlade

Timeline: Evening of Sunday 20th August, 2022. The sleepy town of Iboro in Yewa North was at her bustling best with a big final burial rite party on going at the town hall field. The town was full of life with people from Lagos and as far as Ondo State.

I was at the opposite of the town’s Central Mosque attending to a woman who needed assistance to fill a form. I was doing that surrounded by the husband and the three kids of the woman. There were people having extended family meeting close by, there were guys and girls at the frontage of a barber’s shop, sellers and buyers, people returning and going to the party going on few meters away and worshippers were sitting at the mosque verandah enjoying the cold evening.

Suddenly a vehicle revved loud, heads turned in the direction of the noise. We saw a pick up van of Customs Officers fully armed jumping down in pursuit of a vehicle loaded with rice. The driver of the vehicle jumped down running to escape. The nearest customs officer missed catching him. Pained by the miss, he pushed him hard towards over a meter high pile of cement bricks the guys was facing. He tumbled over the bricks very hard in a way that made us believe he would lay still with a broken neck. Somehow he made it up alive from the fall.

This happened in micro seconds, we were dazed, it was like a scene from a Hollywood war film. Gun sounds rented the air. The customs officers in an attempt to get the vehicle they chased hit it on motion amidst terrible and very scary sporadic shootings, with no driver, no hand brake on, the vehicle turned off the road straight at a man who just left the burial party. The vehicle knocked him flat across the gutter to the other side and ran him over completely. When he was later pulled out from under the vehicle after about 15 minutes that seemed like eternity, one of his leg had been badly broken. It was the shootings that delay mobilization to rescue him fast.

The bad news is that the man is of advance age and not a very healthy man. He depends on support to keep life going.

People recovered from the shock of the sudden sporadic shooting, the car chase, the hitting of a man by the vehicle that was pursued. Shout of they have killed a man rented the air. At that time nobody knew he would survive with a badly damaged leg.

The Customs heard the noise that they have killed a man, they scrambled in an attempt to escaped. They multiplied the shooting, one of them fell off their pick up van, the vehicle motion made him tumbled badly on the road. Miraculously for the people running here and there to escape gunshots and those who were so dazed they could not get themselves to move their bones, his gun did not accidentally release any bullet why he was tumbling. Rest of the officers managed to grab him, they sped off towards Imasayi still shooting.

It was after this moment that people began to emerge from behind walls and other places they ran to, away from automatic rifle bullets. Women were crying thinking they had lost their yet to be seen children. It was then that we could attempt to rescue the man under the vehicle. It was then we knew that the shooting began from the burial party meters away and that the party goers had revolted against them there. It was at that point that they kept the chased on into the heart of the town.

It was in the realm of the miraculous that no life was lost in the sleepy town of Iboro from the bullets of Customs men, it was heavy shooting. Couple of weeks back, same was the situation when they chased a smuggler’s vehicle out of Goshen Church Street into the main road not minding that such sudden burst of vehicles into the main road in built areas could lead to the death of other innocent road users and pedestrians. On that day too they rain bullets like it was a war situation.

What happened in Iboro could not pass rules of engagement anywhere for men and officers TRAINED to carry arms and LEGALLY allowed to do so. It was reckless, abuse of power and the use of firearms. It was a total disregard for life. Those that came outside Ogun State were thinking it was bandits that attacked. It was that bad.

The life of the people of the border areas matters. No one is saying Customs Officers should not do their job but they must respect the sanctity of life. Daredevil chasing of contraband in built up areas is ridiculous. Shooting with destructive rifles in the middle of towns where there are so many innocent people is certainly not the best way to effect law and order. Is intelligence gathering no longer part of law enforcing? Is it alien to the training of customs men?

Iboro is many kilometers away from the international border. The roads leading from the international border into the town are full of checkpoints of Customs men. In some places, checkpoints are few meters apart. Roads in Yewaland makes the land look like a police state with so many customs checkpoints. So how are the contraband getting deep into our towns that are far from the border?

In saner climes, chasing and shooting sporadically would stop once a lot of innocent people are in danger and they could not be evacuated to safety. Why is that not the case in our part of the world. In saner climes, collateral damages are weighed by government and law enforcers. In the end, the catch at all cost that led to the hot chase, the sporadic shooting did not work. They left empty handed. What then was the gain of endangering lives of the innocent when they failed in the end to make any catch?

They only succeeded in giving themselves adverse publicity and gave same to our land as a place not worth coming to for those that value their lives. In Yewaland, customs should respect the sanctity of life as they go about doing their statutory day to day job of law enforcement.

Kehinde Akinlade is a writer, social commentator, and proponent of a greater society.