Nigerians woke up on Wednesday morning to the shocking news of an attack by operatives of the Nigerian Army on the headquarters of the Adamawa State Command of the Nigeria Police in Yola.

Many residents were thrown into panic over the attack, with early reports suspecting a possible attack by Boko Haram terrorists.

Hours after the attack, it emerged that soldiers from the 23 Armoured Brigade in Yola, accompanied by military equipment, arrived at the state police command with an armoured tank and engaged in a gun battle with police officers on duty at the facility.

Speaking to Daily Trust, a witness disclosed that three soldiers had an altercation with policemen who were on stop-and-search duty at Target Junction in Jimeta in the Yola North area, and one of the soldiers pulled a jack knife and attempted to disarm the policemen.

According to the source, this led one of the policemen to shoot the soldier in the leg, leading to the soldiers’ reprisal attack on the police headquarters, during which the inspector was killed in the crossfire.

One of the policemen said the soldiers deployed a dozen trucks and an armoured tank and opened fire when the police denied them access to the facility.

“At first, we thought it was Boko Haram. It was a rain of bullets, they fired, and we returned fire. That was around 11 pm night. In the end, they killed an inspector and took away his rifle,” the source said.

A police Inspector who narrowly escaped death during the attack told The PUNCH that intimidation by the military personnel would no longer be tolerated.

“We are all doing the same job of protecting Nigerians and protecting the territorial and sovereignty of Nigeria, so no sister agency should think the other is inferior.

“What happened on Tuesday ought not to have warranted such a show of force. I am a junior officer, but I think what they needed to do was to call the Commissioner of Police and find out what happened.

“They acted on false information that their colleague was killed by a police officer, and without investigating, they moved over 12 armoured tanks on an attack on our headquarters. This is unacceptable,” the inspector said.

However, a senior military officer blamed the incident on the alleged unprofessional conduct of the police personnel involved.