A police inspector, Jacob Daniel, was killed during a battle between troops and officers at the Adamawa Police Command headquarters in Yola, which was attacked by invading forces in the early hours of Wednesday.
According to insiders, this was the result of a schism between police officers and their military counterparts that began in the late hours of Tuesday.
The fight began at a checkpoint near Target Junction in Jimeta and concluded in an attack on the Yola police station in the same Jimeta region.
Yola inhabitants awoke on Wednesday to rumors of a ‘battle’ between the police and the military, centered on an attack on the police headquarters.
However, no confirmation was forthcoming because neither the police nor the military returned phone calls or text messages given to them.
Residents near the police headquarters reported intermittent gunshots, and soldiers who arrived with a patient were denied admittance to the Police Clinic nearby.
The soldiers allegedly went to the headquarters to vent their rage.
According to a resident of the Command headquarters neighborhood, the sound of gunshots lasted about 30 minutes and disrupted the quiet of the night.
The Police Command acknowledged the incident between its operatives and military soldiers on Wednesday morning.
Adamawa Police spokesman SP Suleiman Nguroje, said Commissioner of Police, CP Afolabi Babatola, affirmed what he described as
“the recent conflict between Police and Military Officers” at a part of Jimeta called Target Junction, from where it escalated with the attack on the police headquarters elsewhere in Jimeta.
According to the statement, the conflict at Target Junction“resulted in exchange of fire and brutal attack on the Police Facility (command headquarters) and killing of Inspector Jacob Daniel.”
The statement said the CP had ordered an immediate investigation into the matter with a view to ensuring peace and justice.
It added:
“The CP warned that attacks on all security officers in the line of duty would no longer be tolerated under whatever guise, as the Command holds the lives of all security personnel sacrosanct, and such unwarranted conflict would be strictly treated in accordance with extant laws.”
Commander of the 23 Armoured Brigade, Brig General Gambo Mohammed, said his men acted to rescue one of their officers taken away by police operatives.
The Commander, giving the perspective of the military in the fracas, said on phone:
“Police shot at our soldiers at a checkpoint. A soldier was injured and they (Police) went and hid him. The soldiers went to rescue the soldier they (police) shot and took away. They (Police) shot at us so they too (soldiers) fired back.”
(Credit: The Nation)