A father-of-two, Sergeant Rowland Tafida, is currently being mourned by friends and family after being killed by an army corporal using an anti-aircraft gun (AAG) after an altercation at Makara, #BornoState.
The deceased was among the MOPOL Special Forces Team deployed to Gwoza last August, on counter-insurgency operations.
According to PRNigeria, Tafida would have completed his six months anti-terrorism operation on February 8, 2020.
It was also learnt that Mr Rowland, a father of two young girls, had already planned to depart Borno this coming Saturday before he was murdered by the unidentified soldier.
An eyewitness who spoke to PRNigeria described the killing of Mr Rowland as “unfortunate and disheartening”. He said the whole drama started with an altercation between the army corporal and another police personnel over a girlfriend.
The eyewitness, who pleaded not to be named, said: “Some people intervened and settled the matter when the aggrieved army corporal asked a driver of an anti-aircraft gun Hilux belonging to his military base, to turn and directly face the Limankara Police Training Camp.
Immediately after turning the vehicle, they opened fire and shot at the Camp’s facility. It was at that moment, Rowland Tafida, the late police sergeant, was killed by a stray bullet because he was not involved in the earlier altercation. .
The blast of the anti-aircraft vehicle totally disfigured his left leg thigh as he was returning to the camp after he went to charge his phone somewhere.
The young MOPOL officer could have survived the terrible assault, but nobody could take him to a medical facility as he lied in his own pool of blood, bleeding profusely and bled to death.” The suspect has since been arrested.