| LOOSE CANNONS
•Policemen go gaga, give Lagos drivers hell
By SEUN ADESIDA and ASHAMU ADEGBOLA
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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Policemen beating the passenger at National Bus stop
• PHOTO: Sun News Publishing
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Some policemen have launched a campaign of terror in Lagos,
beating the hell out of commercial bus drivers, who refused
to yield to their illegitimate demands.
The policemen from hell were caught in action recently, at
the Dopemu end of the Abeokuta Expressway and under the Ikeja
bridge, where they brutalized drivers who refused to part
with N500 or those who will not release their vehicles for
police operations.
In Ikeja, passersby were horrified as a policeman descended
on a driver and beat him till he fainted, just because he
had refused to allow the cop to use his bus, during the rush
hour when he was busy making money.
The ferocious policeman, who launched the assault was identified
as Egbareware Ise, by onlookers, who revived the unfortunate
driver with several sachets of water. They also gave Ise’s
Force number as 366362.
Another team of lawless policemen were seen near Conoil Petrol
Station, Dopemu area. The policemen were so engrossed in their
brutal act that the reporter, who was at the scene had a field
day taking photographs and taking notes without attracting
the attention of the security agents.
An eyewitness told Daily Sun that a bus was coming from Oshodi
and had to drop a passenger at the bus stop when four anti-riot
police men in another commercial bus jumped down and pounced
on the bus that dropped a passenger.
The policemen accused the driver of contravening an existing
order that no commercial bus should stop at that place to
pick passengers. At that point, a passenger challenged the
officers, asking why they should arrest the driver since other
buses were loading from the same spot without any harassment.
That effrontery earned the passenger a dirty slap and a thorough
beating from one of the policemen as his colleagues cheered
him on.
After the beating, the brutalized passenger was dragged into
the waiting bus that brought the policemen, and they attempted
to speed away, but bystanders stopped them and demanded that
the arrested passenger be released. Then, the police officers
threatened the crowd that they would shoot.
The reporter asked, one of the officers identified as Suberu
Thomas, why the bus was impounded and the beating. Thomas
said: "He challenged one of us and engaged him in a fight
and that is why we are arresting him, knowing that the person
he was fighting is a uniformed man."
He was reminded that the person in question was not wearing
any uniform, and that their duty was to protect and not to
bully the citizen, then he reconstructed his argument, saying
that he did not know what actually happened, but he saw the
two of them fighting before the sergeant asked them to stop
and arrest.
According to eyewitness accounts, some officers have turned
the spot to a business center. A man told Daily Sun that an
anti-riot policeman comes to that spot everyday by 12 noon,
as soon as a commercial bus stops for passengers to alight,
he runs after the bus and jumps into it. Then he will start
asking for money. Some of the drivers say they normally part
with N500 to free themselves from his grip.
When the reporter tried to ask the policeman questions, he
jumped into the next available bus and asked the driver to
speed off. He later came back and, his picture was taken as
he was crossing the expressway to pounce on another prey.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police (CP), Mohammed Abubakar,
has been up in arms with bad policemen in the state. Mostly,
he would go around the metropolis in mufti, at times boarding
commercial buses to monitor activities of his men on the road.
There was a time some policemen were made to face orderly
room trial after they stopped a commercial bus carrying the
CP and extorted N1,000 from the conductor.
Reports say the CP was even arrested by a constable, one night,
when he disguised as an ordinary person and his car was stopped
at a checkpoint. But the policemen, who arrested and detained
him at the station that night were lucky; they performed their
duties professionally and never asked for money, even though
they failed to properly identify the man they were arresting
for driving a vehicle with tinted glass.
The CP was said to have been set free after he called the
Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of state Criminal
Investigation Department (SCID) Panti, Mr Leye Oyebade, who
dashed to the police station at Sabo area of Lagos.
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