COLLINS EDOMARAUSE: Does the Lagos Traffic Law Empower the Police to Kill?

IG, MOHAMMED ABUBAKAR

I was deeply pained Wednesday night to hear and see the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Umar Abubakar Manko, on television struggling to give convincing explanation or excuse to Lagosians on the condemnable action of one of his men, simply identified as Haruna, that led to the murder of a motorcyclist, Mr. Olalekan Ajayi, at Ikorodu earlier in the week. I was not just pained by Manko’s callous choice of words while attempting to justify the action of his killer cop, but enraged by his lack of remorse to the fact that a trigger-happy police personnel under his command had pulled the trigger that snuffed-off life from the victim, Ajayi.

Speaking as usual to newsmen after the state’s Security Council meeting, the police commissioner merely appealed for calm. Manko, while briefing reporters after the weekly state Security Council meeting chaired by the state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, said the most appropriate thing to do was for the motorcyclists to allow the law to take its course.

He appealed to the commercial motorcyclists not to take laws into their hands, while stressing the determination of the security agencies in the state to enforce the law on the restriction of operations of commercial motorcycles.

I had strained to hear him utter a word or two to condole with the family of the victim or with the larger motorcyclists in the state, but nothing of such!

The man merely came out from the meeting, decked in the late Sani Abacha style spectacles, took his position in the amid other security chiefs in the state, faced the cameras and talked tough; military style. Why not? After all, he could have reasoned that the police are the law enforcement agents that, though, are paid and maintained by the tax payers, including the late Ajayi, seem to be at liberty to use the gun to take out anybody, including the poor and hapless okada rider, at the slightest provocation!

I felt like jumping into the television set and get his ears off his head. But you see, if wishes were horses, all would ride.

Here, we are talking about a man who was the only son of his parents, a father of four children, husband to two young women, self-sponsored student of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, and bread winner of the family, and somebody was somewhere grandstanding and hammering on the fact that police were enforcing law on the restriction of motorbikes on some routes in the state.

Does the law empower the police to open fire on anybody in the course of its enforcement? I have carefully gone through the Act. I did not see any section or clause therein that gives, either latent or apparent, powers to any of the law enforcements agents, i.e, the police and the LASTMA officials, to open fire on any erring motorist or motorcyclist. All I could gather from it were fines, fines and fines for infraction and not shooting or teargasing of offenders.

Given Manko’s disposition to the Ikorodu incident, it will be a huge surprise to me if the Lagos State command under his watch ensures justice for the family of the victim.

Was it not at the same Ikorodu that some officials of the state police command gunned down, under mysterious circumstance, an official of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corpse (NSCDC) for attempting to bust a pipeline vandalisation ring that some policemen were alleged to have been acting as cover to?

Didn’t the police command under Manko claim that the NSCDC personnel pulled the trigger against an oncoming police patrol van? Civil defence shooting at a police patrol van? Laughable, isn’t it?

Now, we are hearing again the police saying in hush tones that the suspected murderer of the motorcyclist used the gun in an apparent bid to avoid being lynched by the mob.

I feel strongly that Manko’s job has been made simple by the demonstrators when they mentioned the name of the cop that shot and killed the motorcyclist. They were everywhere on the demonstration ground and at the police station, Ikorodu shouting and singing with the name “Haruna” as the assailant. The attack was done in the presence of several others. This is not the case of the famous unknown soldier or the unknown policeman! Haruna serves within the Lagos State Command of the Police and fairness demands that he be brought to justice. And if only to calm strained nerves, one had expected the police to have admitted that yes the trigger was pulled by one of us; yes it was a mistake and we’ll investigate him and if found culpable, we’ll get him dismissed and make him to face justice. He could have also said that meanwhile, we shall continue to keep him in service because under the law of our land, everyone is presumed innocent until otherwise proven. Case closed!

It is on record that since the promulgation of the state traffic Act, some policemen have been over-reaching themselves in the guise of enforcing the law. I don’t want to be concerned with allegations involving bribery and corruption leveled against some officers on the matter.

Yet, with regard to the case at hand, it’s unsetting given Channels Televisio‘s  quote of a source ”that Haruna demands sums from N,5000 up to N15,000 from okada riders, who he insists are plying illegal routes.”