NDLEA officer allegedly kills Lagos council official

A worker with the Alimosho council area of Lagos State, simply identified as Samuel Koro-toe was allegedly stabbed to death yesterday by an officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) at the secretariat of Agege Local Council of the state.

According to a source within the council, trouble began when some NDLEA officers, who have an office in the council and whom he claimed were always in the habit of drinking and firing shots sporadically into the air after lodging arrested drug carriers in their office, were accosted by the NULGE officials for disrupting their activities with endless shooting.  

The action, he added, infuriated the NDLEA officers, one of which the source said hit the late Koro-toe in the head with a machete and he died on the spot.

Consequently, the culprit was said to have fled the scene but his colleagues, according to the eyewitness, were arrested by men of the Agege Police Divisional Headquarters, whose arrival, he noted, averted a reprisal.

Efforts to get comments from the NDLEA spokesman, Mr. Jonah Achema, were futile as his mobile phone was switched off.

Also, when contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Lagos State command, SP Chike Oti, promised to call back in an hour. A call to his mobile phone at the expiration of his pledge went unanswered as at press time.

The late Okoro-toe, an activist, was at the council secretariat in Agege for the ongoing celebration of the 40th-year anniversary of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) across the country.

The incident was captured on camera and posted on social media, which has since gone viral. The deceased was pronounced dead at the scene while the perpetrator fled.