Reps, families shocked as Custom dismisses killing of 5 Iseyin citizens

By Christiana Ekpa

Emotions were high on Tuesday during an investigative hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Customs and Excise Duties, when Assistant Legal Adviser to the Nigeria Customs Sevice, Umar Lawal attempted to discountenance a medical doctor’s report on the cause of death of the victims of the Iseyin killing in Oyo State.
The committee has been mandated by the House to investigate the reported killing of five members of the community by officers of the Service.
Lawal while handing over the report which stated both primary and secondary causes of death of one of the victims followed with argument that the report may have been based on hear-say, throwing relatives, and mother of one of the victims, Mrs. Akintolatan Bosede, as well as other observers into weeping at the investigative hearing.
The committee members were also taken aback by the lawyers submission that “nobody was killed” in the incident which happened on May 13,2021.
A leader of the Iseyin community, Alhaji Rasaki Tijani who led other relatives of the victims to the hearing had earlier in his submissions, told the Hon. Leke Abejide-led committee that five members of his community were killed after 50 villages from the border, and insisted that the victims were not smugglers.
“Those killed were not smugglers. We are not saying customs or any other government agency should not do its job, but they came into the town to shoot innocent people”, he stated,
He added that the officers came across all 50 towns before coming to Isheyin, more than 200 km from the border.
He therefore appealed to committee to help, for those affected will be compensated..
Led in defence by an Acting Deputy Comptroller General, Etom Edorhe, the legal adviser however, said the incident happened when the men and officers were at a roving patrol, and intercepted two Pathfinder jeeps laden with foreign parboiled rice, made attempted arrest, but that the smugglers abandoned the vehicles, only for a mob to mobilise to the Service’s base.