A member representing Badagry Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Babatunde Hunpe, on Thursday urged residents to remain calm over the shooting of three unarmed persons by officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Hunpe made the plea when he visited victims of the shooting at the General Hospital and Harmony Hospital in Badagry.
Two of the victims, Afeez Sannumi, 23, a student of Kankon Secondary School, and Yinusa Olatunji, the driver of a Mazda vehicle are receiving treatment at the Badagry General Hospital, while the third victim, Michael Amore, an SS2 student of the same school, is on admission at the Harmony Hospital, Badagry.
Hunpe, while addressing relatives of the victims at the hospitals in Badagry, urged them to be patient, calm and cooperate with the security agencies in performing their lawful duties.
He said the restriction of the land border was to secure lives and property around the border, adding that it was for the country’s good.
“As I earlier appealed for calm when the restriction of movement of goods started about 16 days ago, I also want you to cooperate with the security agencies mounting the border posts.
“This is because the restriction is to secure the lives and property of Nigerians. It is for our own good.
“I have met the Customs Comptroller of the Seme Border Command and discussed with him on the need to educate his men on how to relate with our people.
“It is not all things that they have to react to because they should be aware of the present economic situation of the country,” he said.
The lawmaker described the September 4 incident as unfortunate because the students involved were not smugglers.
“It is only God that knows what happened; I don’t want to judge, and I don’t want to apportion blame to anyone.
“Mine is that they should both learn from the incident. The law enforcement agencies and the residents should learn to tolerate one another.
“The law enforcement agencies will continue to do their work, while we in the community will stay in a place that God has given us; we need to understand each other,” Hunpe said.
According to him, the job of the security agencies should be felt most at the border post and not within the community.
“I am appealing to the security agencies to take things easy with the residents. All we need is to educate both on the need to tolerate themselves,” he said.
He promised to table a motion to address the country’s land border issues on the floor of the House.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.