THREE people died during a gun duel between the police and armed robbers who attempted to rob a First Bank branch in the Abaji Area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at about 5.00 p.m. on Thursday, June 13.
The deceased include a police officer and two members of the gang.
Two of the deceased were confirmed dead after being rushed to the hospital following the incident, while the body of one of the suspects was set ablaze by an irate mob after he was neutralised by the police.
Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, disclosed this in a statement on Friday, June 14.
“The security forces engaged the armed robbers in an intense gun duel, forcing them to scamper to safety with various degrees of bullet wounds, as the security forces succeeded in apprehending three suspects, namely, Usman (surname yet unknown), who was reported to be the gang leader, Nuhu Musa, 41 ‘m’ of Kogi State; and Muhammed Aminu, 25 ‘m’ of Abaji, with grave degrees of bullet injuries,” she noted.
She explained that police officials were on the trail of fleeing suspects and those apprehended were receiving medical treatment.
A similar incident occurred in March when police officials in Kogi State intercepted a bank robbery.
A security guard and a police official were killed during a shoot-out with the robbers who also carried out their operations at about 5.00 p.m. on a Thursday.
The robbers numbered over a dozen and wielded sophisticated weapons during the operations.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via vopara@icirnigeria.org or @ije_le on Twitter.