Posted by on
An angry mob burnt down two Nigerian police stations and injured six officers during a protest against their local force's alleged involvement in a spate of highway robberies, officials said yesterday.
KANO, Nigeria - An angry mob burnt down two Nigerian police stations and injured six officers during a protest against their local force's alleged involvement in a spate of highway robberies, officials said yesterday. Kaduna State police spokesman Sa'ad Yahaya said rioting had erupted on Sunday in the northern town of Giwa after traders returning from a market ran into a police checkpoint, seized an inspector on duty and accused him of banditry.
Shortly afterwards youths in the town mobilised and went on the rampage "burning down two police stations with two police vehicles and injuring six policemen," he added. The police unit normally deployed to the town has been replaced by a mobile anti-riot squad, he said. But the chairman of Giwa's local government, Kabit Tsoho, painted a different picture of the incident and took the protesters' side.
"The police at the check point tried to rob the cattle traders at gunpoint but the traders were able to overwhelm the police and succeeded in arresting one of them while the rest fled," he said, in an interview on Nagarta Radio. "People have for long been pointing accusing fingers at the police in the area for armed robbery activities that have been going on, and the arrest of a policeman in the act confirmed their suspicion, which provoked the attack against the police," Tsoho said.
Nigeria's 330,000-strong police force is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt and brutal institutions in a country long-plagued by official abuses of power. It is rare for a motorist or merchant to be able to drive from one town to another without being stopped at least once at a police checkpoint and asked for a bribe, while reports of robbery, torture and murder by uniformed officers are commonplace.