Nigerian police and army officers blamed each other on Wednesday after a clash between their forces left three civilians dead and triggered an orgy of arson and looting.
At least three civilians were killed in crossfire and a Lagos police headquarters was burned down on Tuesday after a dispute between armed police and soldiers erupted in street fighting.
Witnesses said that brawling and shooting broke out after an army officer tried to prevent a police patrol extorting an illegal 20 naira (R0,45) toll from a motorcycle taxi driver.
”It was an unprovoked attack on the police. The police did not fire a single shot,” declared Lagos state police Commissioner Ade Ajakaiye.
”You need to visit the Area C command and see the scale of destruction unleashed by the army. Many people were injured. On the number of deaths, we are still collating the figure,” he said.
Lagos police spokesperson Bode Ojajuni said: ”I was kidnapped by the soldiers who beat and inflicted injuries on me. I am on my way to the hospital now for further treatment.”
But a spokesperson for the army said that both sides had been involved in an argument and that soldiers were deployed after police had lost control of the streets and looting had broken out.
”It was an unfortunate incident. Hoodlums took advantage of a small misunderstanding between soldiers and police to unleash terror,” said Lagos army spokesperson Colonel Abayomi Dabiri. ”The miscreants attacked the police station, vandalised the place and set their relations who were in police custody free. Soldiers went there to restore order.”
While the army insisted that no one had been killed, the Nigerian Red Cross confirmed that at least three civilians had been killed in the crossfire.
”Three people were confirmed dead. They were two males and one female, while nine people were injured, seven of them critically, and were referred to hospital,” a Red Cross spokesperson said.
The police command headquarters in the Surulere area of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital and the biggest city of Africa, was totally destroyed in Tuesday’s fighting.
More than 60 vehicles, including 20 police jeeps, were torched, cell doors were smashed and flats rented by officers’ families were looted. Officers said 34 suspects escaped from custody.
Witnesses said that the clash began when an army officer tried to prevent a police patrol robbing a motorcycle taxi driver at a checkpoint.
”The policeman was very angry and slapped the soldier, who ran to mobilise his colleagues from a nearby army barracks,” one said. ”There was shooting and five civilians … were killed in the crossfire.”
The facade of the wrecked police station and vehicles in neighbouring streets were peppered with bullet holes, and witnesses reported that soldiers had opened fire on police.
Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 after 16 years of military dictatorship, but tensions persist between military and civilian security forces.
Both police and soldiers regularly resort to lethal force when dealing with the civilian population and officers routinely extort bribes from motorists. — Sapa-AFP