An Abuja resident has been hospitalized in critical condition after being hit by bullets discharged by an AK-47 service rifle of a police officer attached to Inspector-General Mohammed Adamu.
Abba Bashir received at least two gunshot wounds from the officer, identified as Inspector Magaji, during an early morning drinking bout in a Abuja beer parlor on Saturday, sources told Peoples Gazette. The officer works with Mr. Adamu and Illiya Doma, an assistant police commissioner who also serves as his principal staff officer (two).
The incident occurred around 8:00 a.m. at a roadside beer parlor in Apo, sources said. The matter was immediately hushed up while the victim was moved to an undisclosed hospital. He had received emergency treatment at Cedarcrest Hospital before being relocated to prevent the public from learning about the incident, sources said.
A hospital spokesman did not return a request seeking comments from the Gazette on Monday afternoon. A police spokesman declined comments.
The Gazette gathered that two bullets accidentally discharged from a drunk police officer pierced Mr. Bashir’s foot.
People around the joint, popularly known as Polar, told the Gazette on Monday that the inspector and his friends, numbering about seven, were already heavily drunk and oozing alcohol when they arrived on Saturday morning, presumably having drunk overnight.
“The police and his friends look like people who spent their entire night drinking alcohol before they came to our joint,” a witness said under anonymity to prevent being victimised by high-handed police leadership.
The Gazette saw several bullet holes on a sofa and other corners of the joint during a visit on Monday.
The incident came three months after a police orderly of Abike Dabiri-Erewa fatally shot a teenager without provocation in a beer parlour in Apo-Dutse, also an Abuja neighbourhood. The police have yet to prosecute Samanja Johnson for the murder, although he was promptly taken into custody at the time.
