Youths of Abraka town in Ethiope East LGA of Delta State attacked operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, on Wednesday after arresting two drug dealers in the area.
According to SaharaReporters, an NDLEA officer was shot and one of their vehicles was damaged during the attack.
A resident of the town had raised an alarm on DELSU TV that NDLEA had entered the town, accusing the agency of raiding from house to house and killing one person.
“The NDLEA entered Abraka earlier today and they were raiding boys starting from Urhoka from house to house to the extent they started doing shoot on sight, and I think they shot one person dead.
“The Abraka boys retaliated and held some NDLEA despite their weapons somewhere Abraka boys went into God know where to get guns and they went to the police station currently one of the cars used by the NDLEA has been burnt by Abraka boys,” he said.
Another source said, “Abraka is hot; NDLEA enter Abraka yesterday and started looking for some boy’s house. Boys have entered into police station to confront police, and now the Police have started shooting.
“According to the information that reach (sic) them, some boys carry (sic) drugs into Abraka and the NDLEA did know the exact location and they started to raid everybody house and burnt tire everywhere so that nobody can leave.”
The Delta State Police Command Spokesperson, Bright Edafe, who confirmed the incident to SaharaReporters said the situation has been brought under control.
“We were able to calm the situation down, but nobody died,” he said.
However, Femi Babafemi, Director, Media & Advocacy for the NDLEA, said that the officers were in Abraka to arrest some drug dealers.
Babafemi explained that a 32-year-old man, Samson Idoghor was arrested with 54 litres of codeine, 148.42 grams of tramadol and 113.9 grams of swinol. He said another suspect, Ifeanyi Afunez, 34, was arrested with 6 litres of codeine.
He said, “Some weeks ago precisely on August 3rd, we intercepted a vehicle conveying drugs, and the driver, Ike Okprachi was arrested and has been charged to court. The driver claimed that he was not the actual owner of the drugs. He said he was just conveying them for the owners.
“What happened on Wednesday in Abraka was the follow-up operation. Through intelligence, we were able to track the actual owners of the illicit drugs.
“That was what led our men to Abraka to arrest the actual owners. We arrested the two of them successful and recovered more drugs from them.”
“When our men were leaving the town, some youths in the town ambushed and started throwing objects at them. They shot one of our agents who is currently in the hospital and damaged one of our vehicles,” Babafemi added.
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