Another Customs Blunder? Pregnant Woman Going To Work Hit By Customs Bullets

Only this week at Ebule Egba in Lagos State, customs officials were accused of shooting dead a rice smuggler which led to a huge protest by citizens. A major road was blocked and people would have taken laws into their hands if not for the quick intervention of RRS officials and other security agents who rushed to the scene to calm down the situation and asked people to go home.

Now another happens in Ogun State. According to Vanguard, a pregnant woman has been reportedly shot by a Customs officer attached to the Federal Operation Unit, FOU, Ikeja, on her way to the office, yesterday morning.

The pregnant woman, identified as Olugunna Bukola, was hit by stray bullets around Iyana-Iyesi area of Ota in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government, Ogun State.


A resident of the area, who witnessed the incident, disclosed that the woman was hit by bullets on her back and the left side of her body, when the Customs officials were in the pursuit of rice smugglers.

Customs It was gathered that the woman was rushed to a nearby hospital, but whether she survived could not be ascertained at press time.

The source, who craved anonymity, told Vanguard that the customs officials involved were later arrested by policemen attached to Obasanjo Farm Police Station and later taken to Sango Police Station.

Customs’ reaction

The Public Relations Officer, Ogun State Customs Area Command, Abdullahi Maiwada, who confirmed the incident, said the woman was “brushed” by a stray bullet and not hit. He said the officers were on the trail of a suspected smuggled vehicle and not rice, as claimed, when they were mobbed by some “unpatriotic members of the public.”

His words: “The officers were on the trail of a suspected smuggled vehicle and, in the process, they were mobbed by some unpatriotic members of the public.

“The officers were left with no option than to shoot sporadically into the air, in the process the said woman was brushed by a stray bullet.

“The Customs officers were in police station for safety— to avoid mob attack— not the insinuation that they were arrested by the Police.

“We spoke with the relative of her husband and the doctor; they both confirmed that the woman is responding to treatment.”

Speaking with Vanguard on phone, the victim’s brother-in-law, Tosin Olugunna, said she had been stabilised at the hospital and that the pregnancy was not also affected.