DAILY TRUST
No fewer than 43 security details attached to high-profile personalities in the country have been killed in the line of duty within 25 months, Daily Trust Saturday reports.
The development which claimed the lives of mostly policemen has been described as “unacceptable” by security experts considering how secure their principals with the bullet-proof vehicles are while the officers remain vulnerable to attacks in their not secured pick-up vans.
Checks in the reported cases by our correspondents show that the number of casualties recorded in 2021 is lesser than the ones recorded in 2022, with a fresh record in 2023.
The recent attack on a former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, on January 2, 2023, where at least four of his security details were killed, has raised concerns among Nigerians.
Two personnel were earlier killed by suspected IPOB militants on December 9, while serving as security aides to two expatriates at a construction site at Umunachi in Imo State.
According to a tally compiled by Daily Trust Saturday, 12 and 27 personnel were killed in 2021 and 2022 respectively by kidnappers, gunmen, armed robbers, bandits, Boko Haram, IPOB militants, among other criminals, while four paid the supreme price in 2023.
The dangerous trend
On March 31, 2021, a police officer was killed by gunmen at ex-minister Damishi Sango’s residence in Danwal in Riyom LGA of Plateau State.
On May 5, 2021, another security personnel was killed by kidnappers at Ibara Orile in Ogun State while serving as a guard to some farmers.
Findings show that on May 21, 2021, armed robbers killed a policeman when they attacked a Chinese man who had withdrawn money from a bank in Abia State.
Also, gunmen killed an officer and abducted two Chinese men at a mining site in Arufu community in Taraba State on June 14, 2021.
Barely three days after the incident in Taraba, a police officer, Adewumi Abiola, was killed at Adeaga/Alaagba, a border community between Oyo and Ogun states when two Chinese were kidnapped.
On July 4, 2021, gunmen attacked Delta State APC Chairman, Chief Michael Johnny, on Warri-Effurun road where one of the police officers attached to him was killed.
In the same vein, a police orderly to Prof Samuel Ndubuisi of the Scientific Equipment Development Institute was killed on the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway three days after the Delta incident.
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