Revenge : The Nigerian Air Force Way !

[Gunship]

Nigerian Air Force officers stabbed and beat up 26 police officers, cracking their skulls and breaking their limbs in a two-day revenge rampage for the shooting of an airman, police said on Thursday.

Scores of Air Force officers outside a barracks in the commercial capital Lagos attacked any police officier who passed by on Tuesday and Wednesday, a police spokesperson said.

One policeman was shot in the leg, police said, and the airmen used rifles, knives and hammers.

They were avenging the killing of an airman who was shot dead by police after a group of Air Force personnel allegedly tried to stop detectives from arresting suspected criminals near the barracks, he said.

"Three of 26 police men on admission in hospital were on the danger list yesterday, I don't know if they are still alive," the spokesperson said.

Clashes between the military, who ruled the country for 15 years until 1999, and the poorly paid and ill-equipped police force are frequent in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.