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The Iseyin Elders Council (IEC), on Friday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to order the arrest and prosecution of Nigeria Customs Service personnel who killed innocent residents of Iseyin town, Iseyin Local Government Area of Oyo State, on Thursday, while chasing rice smugglers.
The council in a statement by its vice chairman and former Commissioner for Works and Transport in Oyo State, Alhaji Bolaji Kareem, said it identified with the submission of Aseyin of Iseyin, Oba AbdulGaniyu Adekunle, that the Federal Government should restrict the activities of Customs operatives to within 40 metres of border posts.
The group also demanded justice for families of those killed, urging the Federal Government to ‘adequately compensate’ them as well.
“Iseyin Elders Council wants a probe panel to be instituted while indicted Customs officers should be charged with murder. We are tired of killings of innocent, harmless, defenceless citizens of Iseyinland and Oke Ogun by officers in uniform.
“We wondered why it is only in this part of the country that men of Customs and Excise abandoned their duty posts to chase shadows and kill our law-abiding innocent people,” it said.
The council also called on Governor Seyi Makinde to champion the course of defenceless citizens of Iseyin and Oke Ogun being killed by Customs operatives, kidnappers, bandits and herdsmen.
It commiserated with the families of those killed, the Aseyin of Iseyin and people of the town, hoping that the officers would be made to account for their actions.