By SUYI AYODELE, Benin

A Divisional Police Officer (DPO), attached to the Igarra Police Station, Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, of Edo State, Mr Suleiman Muhammed, was reportedly shot by suspected kidnappers along the Auchi-Igarra-Ibillo road.

Tribune Online gathered that the incident happened on Tuesday some few metres to Sasaro, at about 7 pm, and it took the intervention of the local vigilante group to evacuate the badly injured DPO, whose assailants were said to have thought he was dead.

The shooting led to commuters becoming stranded for a long time before the vigilante cleared the road.

A member of the vigilante group which evacuated the DPO said that the senior police officer was shot in the eyes, arm and stomach, adding that he might have been shot with an AK 47 rifle as the group recovered bullets and other cartridges from the scene of the attack.

“The DPO had earlier called us in the morning to a place where they said some suspected yahoo boys constituted a nuisance, then later around 3 pm, he told us that these suspected kidnappers were blocking the road, so we went there and chased them away.

“I was told that later in the evening after inspecting the change of guard, the DPO proceeded in his Toyota Camry car to Auchi where his family resides. The people laid ambush after the MTN Mast near Sasaro and shot him severally, I believe they thought he was dead and then abandoned him.

“Their gunshots made motorists going to Auchi and coming from Auchi stop until we arrived at the scene in the company of the police to rush the DPO to the hospital. He was bleeding profusely because he was shot in the eyes, arm and stomach; after stabilizing him, he was rushed to Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital.

“This morning, my boys and I went back to the scene and we recovered used bullets including those of AK 47 and cartridges,” the vigilante source, who pleaded anonymity narrated.

Corroborating him, another leader of the vigilante group blamed the rising presence of kidnappers in that axis on a community along that road, which was accused of letting part of its land to herdsmen for grazing.

Edo State Police Command Public Relations Officer, Bello Kontongs, was said to be on an official assignment out of the state, but sources at the command said they were awaiting official details of the incident. (Nigerian Tribune)

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