The Abia State Police Command has been attacked by some fully-armed men suspected to be members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, FIJ can exclusively report.

In the early hours of Monday, the assailants who were disguised in military camouflage marched in on a gun truck and opened fire on the mobile police officers attached to the MOPOL 28 squadron within the premises of the command headquarters in Umuahia.

According to a source familiar with the incident, the police “mistook them for military men until they suddenly opened fire on the officers on duty”.

“The police officers also repelled them and the attackers were forced to zoom off,” the source told FIJ.

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During the gun duel however, a police inspector known as Friday Adams, attached to the 17PMF, was shot dead. His rifle is also yet to be found, despite a police search. 

FIJ gathered that his corpse has been deposited in the morgue at the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia. Subsequently, Bala Abdulahi Hassan, the state’s commissioner of police, charged the assistant commissioners of police and divisional police officers in Abia to be on red alert.

As the southeast continues to witness rising levels of insecurity, police stations and officers have become the target of attacks. In late November, two mobile police (MOPOL) squadrons were ambushed and some non-state actors in Umuahia.

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To stem violence in the region, the police launched the special “Operation Restore Peace’. During the launch of the special operation in May, Usman Baba Alkali, the Inspector-General of Police, accused the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) of being behind the violence, adding that the group’s activities have caused “unjustifiable inter-ethnic violence” in the five southeast states.