Officer recounts first armed encounter on Song-Yola highway

YOLA — A serving police officer has recounted his first direct shootout with armed robbers on the Song-Yola highway in Adamawa State in December 2002.

The officer, then a young policeman posted to Adamawa, said he was driving his Honda Prelude at about 9:00 p.m. along the 72-kilometre road between Song and Yola when he came upon an ongoing robbery.

At a sharp bend approximately 40 kilometres from Yola, he found the road blocked by a gang. Four vehicles had already been stopped and their occupants were lying face down on the highway.

“As I brought my vehicle to a stop because the road was blocked, two of the armed robbers immediately rushed toward my car with their weapons drawn,” he said. “Unknown to them, I was an armed officer.”

He said he drew his pistol and fired at the two attackers through the car window, then exited the vehicle and took cover in tall grass at the roadside.

He had expected the rest of the gang to engage him. Instead, he said, the robbers fled into the bush after seeing two of their members neutralized, abandoning the scene and the victims.

The officer , DCP Abba Kyari described the incident as a tonic in his career, it was first shared in a 2022 interview with Ifeanyi Okorie as unforgettable and a defining moment in his law enforcement career.

Aiyekooto Reporters gathered that the officer is still be held in Kuje Correctional Centre in a drug related issues, while the penetrators of the crime are junketing in first class plane all over the world. A fair look into the matter is the key to equity and justice, justice delay is justice denied, AR fumes.