By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
In Nigeria, interagency rivalry has become common place among security agencies. To say that they are always in the news for the wrong reason is to say the least. That such estranged rivalry with other sister agencies has affected various anti crimes activities in the country is to put it mildly. That its countless ugly phases is worrisome to many at the court of public opinion and major reason for whispers and gossips in the streets is to state the obvious.
On Monday, the Imo state Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), said its headquarters was attacked by the Police command in the state.
In the attack, an officer of the NSCDC was said to have been killed while the commandant was battered.
The NSCDC said the issue started while the commandant was returning from Abacheke, where hundreds of people died at a bunkery site. “When he was about leaving the area , a man started blocking him and his entourage with his old mercedes benz car. The armed personnels ordered him to give way to the commandant but he refused. The security escort approached to beat him but the commandant asked them to leave him.
“This same man followed the commandant enturage to Owerri. As the commandant was about to enter the state command, the man blacked him, saying he is a police officer and brought out a pistol. But officers held him and seized his pistol and locked him. When he was released, he went and brought groups of armed police officers and opened tear- gas everywhere at the command and started shooting pirodically.
“In the process, the State Civil Defence Commandant, Mr. M O. Ogar who came out to address the situation was also heavily attacked, beaten with his uniform turned and striped off him. This led the issue to degenerate to exchange of gun battle between men of the sister Para-military agencies that resulted to the unfortunate death of an NSCDC Personnel and many others seriously wounded.”
The assailants were also said to have whisked away the commandant’s orderly.
In the heat of the event, both services painted different picture of the event.
Police in a statement issued by CSP Michael Abattam, its spokesperson, denied any attack on NSCDC officers. The police said it was the NSCDC officers that were violent to them when they went to seek for release of an officer detained by NSCDC personnels.
Despite its own telling, previous events indicated that the service had in the past attacked civil defence personnels at various occasions.
On March 27, 2013, Premium Times, an online news medium reported that some officers of the Nigeria Police Force, allegedly attacked men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, at Ikorodu Lagos.
The civil defence officers were returning from a site of arrest of some pipeline vandals when the police officers opened fire on them, according to witnesses.
Witnesses put the time of the incident at between midnight and 3 a.m.
Two officers, identified as Gabriel Adaji and Innocent Akegbe, were killed while five others received severe gunshot wounds, according to a source at the NSCDC.
A witness said that the arrested vandals contacted some police officers who ambushed the Civil Defence officers and their prisoners.
“Immediately the police got wind of the information, they laid siege for the Corps and open fire on the NSCDC patrol vehicles killing two while others scampered for their dear lives with gunshot wounds as the vandals were released immediately by the police,” the witness said.
A source at the NSCDC corroborated the account, adding that an argument had ensued between the returning NSCDC officers and the team of police officers at a checkpoint along the Ikorodu expressway.
“One of the policemen said we (NSCDC) had no right to operate in the area,” the source said.
“The NSCDC men explained that it was their duty to protect all government facilities including oil pipelines.”
Also in the same month, Adeduyite Blesssing of the NSCDC and Afolabi Dorcas of Nigerian Prisons Services, NPS, were beaten to a pulp by police officers in Kubwa, Abuja, the civil defence said.
The civil defence said the officers attracted the irk of the policemen in mufti who accused them of driving recklessly after they asked him to identify himself.
“This led to a serious argument between them, in the process some Police officers in near-by Police Station in Kubwa-FCT intervened on the matter and they supported their colleagues in beating both officers of
NSCDC and NPS to a state of comma.”
Again, in September 5th, 2014, about 10 policemen attacked an officer of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in front of corps’ headquarters.
The incident, according to the Assistant spokesman of the corps, Shola Odumosun, occurred at about 11am.
Attempts by the policemen to gain entrance to NSCDC national headquarters were checkmated by the corps’ officials who barricaded the organization’s main gate despite sporadic shooting by the police officers.
This development caused pandemonium around the Peoples Democratic Party’s headquarters and other areas leading to the NSCDC headquarters as people scampered in directions to avoid being hit by stray bullets.
Painting another ugly picture, on October 20, 2013, an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) who was travelling from Abuja with a Volkswagen Golf Car was yet again beaten in public by police officers at Ado Junction, along Akure/Owo Expressway in Ondo State, disrupting free flow of traffic gor several hours.
Reports had it then that after beating the lone civil defence officer, identified as Seun, the police officers handcuffed and took him to Ijapo Police station.
Worried by series of these challenges and it’s resultant effect to Nigeria’s security system, a Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Movement Against Corruption (MAC) said , “It is time for the National Assembly and the Presidency and other concerned agencies to the country from the incessant upheavals among security agencies.
The movent in a statement issued by its convener, Pius Ga’ar said , “The last thing we need as a nation now is a fissure within our security apparatus; our security agencies more than ever before need to be more united and collaborative to commandeer the perpetrators of these malignant acts.“
But whether the service will in the nearest future mend fence with other security agencies to jawjaw on how best to collaborate regardless of the colour of uniforms, only time will tell.
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