Date: 2017-10-07

A serving police corporal simply identified as Awodi attached to Alapa police station in Asa local government area of KWARA State is now on the run with some people suspected to be thugs .

They were alleged to have intercepted a Customs Roving Team on Tuesday 3/10/2017 while on official duty .

The intercepted team was led by a Chief Superintendent of Customs, (CSC) Maciver , A. L comprising SC Basheer, O.I ASCII Iloba, M.I ASCII Ayinla J, CAI Mangai, and CAI Odo P.

According to the leader of the team, CSC Maciver , the incident happened when they went on information patrol on Ilorin - Alapa Road when they received information that smugglers have hidden two golf vehicles ladened with imported rice in the bush.

On sighting the patrol vans , the drivers of the vehicle containing the smuggled rice, bolted with the keys of the vehicles.

CSC Maciver said due to the state of the vehicles that were ladened with the contraband, himself and his men decided to evacuate the rice into the two customs vehicles on patrol .

The customs boss alleged that after taken off from the scene of the interception and on their way to the Customs office office with the bags of rice, one Asake mobilized four golf vehicles loaded with people suspected to be thugs and pursued their patrol vehicles with the assistance of a police corporal identified as Awodi and forcefully offloaded all the bags of rice after partially destroying the customs patrol vehicle.

According to him , the ongoing construction work along Geri Alimi Roundabout in Ilorin slowed down the efforts of his men from moving fast and the police corporal and the thugs catch up on them and forcefully offloaded the rice back to the golf vehicles .

CSC Micever said due to the presence of innocent citizens around where his men were disrupted from performing their official duties, , they could not open fire on the thugs to guide against shooting of innocent people.

Meanwhile, the leader of the team disclosed that investigation has begun on the issue as all those involved would be apprehended and all the smuggled rice would be confiscated.

When contacted on the issue , the spokesman of the Kwara police command , DSP Ajayi Okasanmi said the customs has not yet officially briefed the police command about the development but confirmed that the state commissioner of Police, Mr Lawan Ado had directed the DPO Alapa Police station to investigate the matter and report back to the headquarters about the involvement of the corporal in question.

DSP Okasanmi explained further that if the corporal was found to be involved in the allegation , he would be death with officially and brought to book accordingly.