Don’t run errands for strangers, police warn park workers
FCT Police Divisional Officer in charge of Utako Police Division, Chief Superintendent Patrick Daaor, has called on wheelbarrow pushers, drivers and other park workers not to collect bags from strangers while looking for customers at the park.
He made the call during a sensitization tour of all the parks in the area.
Before the call, a mild drama ensued in Borno Line of the park when the daughter of an elderly woman, Hama Garba Kulang, who was on her way to Borno State told the driver of the bus that her mother was carrying her husband’s bullets and ammunition.
The driver, obviously scared immediately turned back and raised alarm. The park manager in turn immediately contacted men of the Utako Police Division, who swooped into action and searched the elderly woman’s bags but no weapon or ammunition was found.
The source said people at the park started running helter-skelter, thinking that the old woman was carrying bombs.
“Policemen were mobilised to the scene and as we were doing so, her son-in-law, who identified himself as an officer with the Nigerian Army, one Barabe Ali, arrived the park hinting that what his wife called bullets and ammunition was their daughter’s birth certificate which her mother mistakenly parked in her travelling box.
He pleaded that his wife was an illiterate and that his mother-in-law was not carrying any weapons. The old woman who was in a panic was crying as the drivers teased her.
The Utako divisional police officer advised wheelbarrow pushers and park workers, who gathered to watch the incident that if anyone gave them a bag or load to carry for them and tried to excuse him/herself, they should raise alarm or contact the police.
The Utako police boss advised them to be vigilante and be free to reach out to the police while suspecting foul play.