“A few months ago, I was apprehended by some policemen who had mounted a checkpoint between the Onitire’s Palace and the Police Station at Itire on my way to work. They demanded to see the vehicle’s papers. Incidentally, the papers had just expired and were in the process of being renewed. They were two: one in mufti and the other, a corporal in uniform told me that I have committed a serious traffic offence. All appeal that the papers just expired and will be ready in a few days fell on deaf ears. They said if I needed their assistance, I should give them N15,000. After so much haggling, they took N3,000,” Paul, a businessman recalled an encounter with the police at a checkpoint while he was on his way to work. He was only left off the hook after parting with some cash. This experience which left him agitated, has equally made not a few residents wondering what roadblock and checkpoint are designed to achieve in the first place. It is such acts, as shown above, which has brought so much disrepute to the Nigeria Police, that prompted a pronouncement from the Inspector of General Police Solomon Arase. While bemoaning the level of rot and deviation from constitutional duty of policing, the IG unequivocally described his displeasure.
“I wish to, in clear terms, re-emphasize that police road blocks remain banned. They are public nuisance, points of corruption, and source of policecitizens’ frictions. “The loss of public respect and confidence in the police as well as our inability to effectively tackle crimes in the most ethical and professional manner have been widely attributed to the challenge of corruption within the policing system.” In most places where roadblocks and checkpoints were operated, culprits found running afoul of driving requirements could hardly go free without having to part with some money. But since the IG’s open upbraid, there has been a noticeable change in the mode of operations. In a few of the roadblocks/checkpoints spots that have been kept under New Telegraph’s watch since the IG’s pronouncement, it has been discovered that policemen have devised and introduced new antics in their operation of roadblocks/ checkpoints. Unlike previously when they operated without restraints, new twists are being employed. What is obtainable now is a situation where the policemen show up to carry out operations at their usual roadblock/ checkpoint spot, operate for a short period and retreat. An elderly resident, Adejumo Martins, who resides in Ikorodu and had witnessed several disgusting scenarios being perpetrated on Ikorodu road, recalled the characteristic police extortions between Ile-Epo and Thomas Bus-Stops, Ajegunle Area of Ikorodu Road.
He said, “Everybody who had commuted regularly on Ikorodu Road and taken diligent observation of events, especially the activities of the men of Ajegunle Police Station on the Ajegunle section of Ikorodu Road, will bear witness to the extortion that was going on there until a few weeks ago when the new IG gave an order to dismantle roadblocks mounted by policemen across the country. Under the guise of checking for vehicular papers, they extort the drivers, especially those ones without complete documentation.
Apart from the private ones, their regular targets are the commercial transport operators. In the full public glare, they collect money from bus drivers, and commercial motorcycle riders and others who operate on that route. Most times, when they were doing this illegality, they hindered free traffic flow and contributed to already worsened traffic situation on that road.” Martins added: “But one thing that is easily noticeable a few weeks since the new IG outlawed roadblock is the disappearance of their usual presence on those spots of illegal operations during the daytime. But this doesn’t mean that they have gone off totally from perpetrating their shameful extortions. They now mostly operate in the night, collecting tolls from commercial bus and bike operators.
With this, one doubts if anyone can ever stop the police from their acts of bribery and corruption.” When accosted to relay his working experience viz-a-viz encounter with the police, another resident, Donald Chiedu, a commercial bus driver, who operates on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway briefly affirmed to New Telegraph that there has been a more discreet manner in the extortion strategy of the police. “Truly, we have always had and taken the kind of extortion that we experience from policemen on the road as part of this driving job. What can we do? We are helpless; and that’s why you find most of us giving them money just to avoid their trouble.” He added that “their presence at the usual checkpoints has reduced recently, but sometimes you find them coming to those places and stay briefly to do their operations.” Responding to the inquiry whether money is still being collected, Chiedu disclosed that “the way they operate in most places is such that collection of money is done by proxy because they often operate in collaboration with the agberos (miscreants). That’s why it will be difficult to eradicate agbero in Lagos because of the synergy they have with law enforcement agents in the state. For instance, at Under Bridge Bus- Stop where I picked you (Under Bridge Bus-Stop is on Muritala Mohammed Airport Road, Oshodi), you’ll see that policemen and the agberos use to operate side by side.
The agberos collect tolls from commercial bus operators while the policemen, who are usually between 10 and 12 in number, stop private vehicles. I tell you surely that it is a collaboration, and they know how they settle themselves. “But we have noticed that unlike before when the police used to stay throughout the day, they only come briefly and move. It may be they are doing this in order not to be apprehended and seen as defying the IG’s order. We hope that this will last, but the Agbero issue in Lagos also must be looked into by the state government. ”
However, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Ken Nwosu, in response to the issues of policemen mounting roadblock and checkpoints, said: “It is in the best interest of the people that there is the presence and the visibility of the police in the neighbourhoods. It has to be gotten right: the IG has not said that the presence of the police should not be seen at all in the neighbourhoods. The order is against a situation whereby you find policemen using bags of sand, woods and drums to block the free movement of the members of the public on the roads. “What you’ll find on the roads now is pin-down points where police will just stop for a short time to carry out routine check on a few vehicles, and move on with their patrol exercise. Visibility of the police is a means of crime-fighting.”
Reacting to the allegations that these checkpoints are often used by the policemen as extortion points, and that the perpetrators couldn’t have had the temerity to indulge in such illegality without the tacit support of the relevant supervising officers, Nwosu said “all of us cannot be saints, and it is wrong to use the deeds of a few bad eggs to measure moral standing of others in an organization,” adding however that “when a journalist goes out for an event and collects a brown envelope at the end of the event, will you say he has collected the envelope on the behalf of his Editor or the management of the newspaper he represents? Surely, there are bad eggs in the police. Notwithstanding, we have put in place a mechanism we call stop-thebribe- initiative to stop the extortionist tendencies in the police.” With the adopted strike-retreat strategy being employed by the policemen at usual checkpoints and roadblock spots across the state to continue extortion, it is an open truth that the IG’s order that roadblocks be dismantled may not be heeded. Many policemen’s seeming entrenchment in corrupt acts will not make them to comply and imbibe noble acts easily. But the relevant stakeholders: the police authority, civil societies and the citizenry must all wage concerted effort for the lofty aim of eradicating all known vices, which have for a long time continued to hold the morality, efficiency and professional development of the Nigeria Police in abeyance.
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