Pastor trying to evade duties check knocks down Customs official on highway

Pastor Nsikanabasi Ese, pastor and founder of Kairos Rhema Embassy, Uyo
Pastor Nsikanabasi Ese, pastor and founder of Kairos Rhema Embassy, Uyo

A Customs officer serving in Akwa Ibom State was critically injured on Thursday after he was knocked down on a highway by a man who allegedly tried to evade duties check.

The man, who was later identified as Nsikanabasi Ese, a pastor, and founder of Kairos Rhema Embassy, Uyo, was driving in an SUV along Eket-Ikot Abasi-Port Harcourt Highway, in Onna Local Government Area of the state, when he was reportedly flagged down by Customs officers at a checkpoint around 10.30 a.m.

“He (the pastor) slowed down the vehicle, so we naturally thought he was pulling over,” the injured officer, Daneke Emmanuel, told journalists at Immanuel Hospital, Eket, where he was receiving medical attention. “At the point that we were relaxed, he fired back the engine at full throttle, and before I could dive to safety he had already hit me.”

The pastor, Mr. Ese, was said to have sped off after hitting the officer.

He pulled over the brown colour Toyota Highlander at a short distance along the highway when he noticed that a Customs vehicle was about giving chase, a Customs official who witnessed the incident told PREMIUM TIMES.

“He flung open the car door, walked away from the car and then suddenly slumped on the ground as though he was in great pains,” the witness said. “As we were about to find out what was wrong with him, another occupant of the car jumped onto the steering and ran away with the car.”

The Customs team drove both its injured officer and the pastor to the hospital.

The injured officer, a deputy superintendent of customs, was complaining of pains in his waist region when journalists met him. He could not move his right leg and was assisted to sit on a hospital chair by two other Customs officials.

A medical doctor in the hospital, Dickson Okonjko, said he attended to the 51-year-old officer around 12 noon and had to give him an injection to relieve him of pains. He said he had directed the officer be taken to a medical laboratory in Uyo, the state capital, where they could run some quick tests on him before treatment could commence.

When journalists enquired of the medical condition of the pastor, Dr. Okonjko smiled and then responded, “I have directed that x-ray should be done on him here in the hospital since he is complaining of chest pain”.

The pastor declined to comment on the incident when journalists met him in one of the wards in the hospital. An unidentified young lady was with him.

One of the customs officials told PREMIUM TIMES that they suspected that the pastor was pretending to be in pains to forestall the possibility of him being charged to court.

A handful of customs officials inside two of their trucks were seen arriving the hospital premises at about 3 p.m.

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  • wazobia decomposition !!!!!!

    the only customs agency to stand on the roads like common touts …………..

    • Mufu Ola

      Is that why a “man of devil” has to knock him down?

      • Shawn

        Lawless people

      • Opekete

        Yes. I will not only knock them down I will run them over. Can you imagine the inconvenience of checking if you paid the correct duty on your car while driving on the road? Why should I pay for the corrupt irresponsibility of the custom officers in the port? Where in a civilized society is this done? This idea alone shows how gullible and irresponsible the Comptroller general of custom is. He have to clue how to reorganize the stinking corrupt customs so they have to shift duty collection to the checkpoint on the highway. What a nonsense.

        • Usman

          is that worth a life, or at least jeopardizing someone’s health? Please be reasonable

        • Gbola

          And this is your justification for him to be INTENTIONALLY knocked down ??

  • ojays

    Our security men stand on the road as if they are make of rock or iron. But that’s not to say anybody should hit them.

    • aca

      Read the story well

    • Gbola

      Take a Principled Stance.

      You’re very deceitful and disingenuous.
      You first bamed the custom officer.
      At the sametime you absolved him with your very last statement.

      Stop speaking from both sides of your stinking mouth.

  • Onye Obosi

    Pastor doing what they know how to do best, “faking.”
    Where is his brother in “sleaze,” Pastor Taiwo?
    Come and give us alternative facts, on what happened.

  • bandera

    They had human heads in the car, so the pastor decided to come out of the car to distract the custom officials, so his brother could escape with the heads.

    • Ayinde

      dumb skull what is the relation of your comment to the news ?

    • Bimbo.

      I suspect you to be the ritualist that sold the human head to him. Or how did you know?

  • Ibrahim Ahmed

    There is a situation where everyone must share the blame,I see no reason why costoms would check a car already been used in the country if it wasn’t checked at the point of importation,Secondly if they were directed to such,there’re techniques been taught of blocking ignored by our enforcement agencies in practice,Then some moderation is needed by our officers to avoid such anarchical atttitude by our citizens because if the law is to adhered and enforced all the way it leads to fear and a police state anywhere in the world,

    • Gbola

      You are a bloody criminal.

      The custom officer could’ve been killed and this is how you would’ve still heaped blame on the deceased ??

      You ought to be ashamed of your damn self.

      UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE is it justifiable to hit any custom officer in this instance.

      He could’ve mounted his defense in court assuming he thinks the roadblock is illegal NOT run him over.

      Mtcheeeew…

    • FineBoy

      You must be a smuggler.

      A simple apology:

      If thieves or robbers take my car and escape, then they should not be arrested since they were not caught at the crime scene?

      Crime is crime no matter who commits it and time it takes to arrest him.

      This man is a killer beatification Japanese toy

  • Ibrahim Ahmed

    The point I raised was with the intention of addressing the root cause of the incident and we should understand that the driver who tried to escape wouldn’t hit the man intentionally and as for the smuggling who wouldn’t want to make some dough because someone wrote it somewhere that I cannot buy and sell across some artificial borders been controlled by the most corrupt agency the world has ever seen,I wouldn’t be naive if the chance should come my way at least it’s better than fraud,kidnapping or dealing in drugs.You don’t call anyone who has not been proofed a criminal rather a suspect for doing so is a crime too ie;slander and defamation of character,I can prove yours while you can’t prove my,What do you call yourself just because of a different opinion.