NEWS > 25 February 2007

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Vanguard - Apapa,Lagos,Nigeria
25 February 2007

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A journalist’s encounter with

WHEN the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, assumed office a few years ago, he came out with an anti-corruption campaign, tagged, To Serve And Protect With Integrity.

It was an admission of the pervasive corruption in the Police Force whose men had become notorious for extorting money from anybody that had anything to do with them especially motorists on the highway.

Significantly, checkpoints mounted by policemen had become another toll gate where commercial drivers and even private car drivers must drop money as they pass.
It was against the background that the Ehindero campaign would rid the Police of the deep-seated corruption and take them to the pedestal that would enable them serve the people and protect them with integrity that the launch was greeted with applause. Not much has been heard about the enforcement of the anti-corruption campaign.
However, it appears that many policemen, especially in Lagos State, do not share the Inspector-General’s vision to build incorruptive Police as the order of the day is still police harassment of innocent citizens with the ultimate aim to extort money from them. My encounter with some policemen in Lagos clearly attests to this fact. I was driving from Idimu to Ikeja, Thursday, February 15, 2007 at about 11.30am. Anticipating the ever present traffic snarl at Egbeda, I chose to take the bye-pass that would take me from Orelope to Akowonjo.

As I branched out of the Egbeda-Idimu expressway, at a point between Orelope and Okunola bus stop, I ran into a checkpoint mounted by some policemen. The policemen stopped me and one of them whose name tag and number on uniform read Ezeh Kelvin and 460469 respectively was asked to attend to me. He asked for the vehicle papers and my driver’s licence which I promptly gave him. After going through the papers, he demanded for the allocation of number plate paper. I replied that I was not aware that, that had become a requirement for vehicles in Lagos, and that if that had just become a requirement, my car is about six years old and I was not issued with any such paper when I was being allocated number plate.

That was the beginning of my problem as Ezeh then took me to the presumed leader of the police team who I later learnt to be an inspector. The said inspector was wearing a black apron over his uniform. So, there was no way I could ascertain his rank, read his name tag and service number. Ezeh (he told me later he is a constable) handed my vehicle papers and driver’s licence to the inspector and briefed him about my “offence,” that is driving a vehicle without allocation of number paper.

I tried to explain to the inspector that I did not know when the document became a document to be carried by vehicles plying Lagos roads. But he charged at me, warning me not to come closer to him. Thereafter, the inspector asked Ezeh to take me to the station. That was when I knew the team was from Idimu Police Station. Ezeh joined me in my car and as I turned and drove a few metres to head to the station, I asked Ezeh if it was not proper for him to collect my car documents and my driver’s licence from the inspector so that, that would form the basis of my explanation to their superiors at the station.

But the constable said I should not bother him about that. So, I stopped the car and went down to meet the inspector. All my entreaties to the inspector that I was a journalist with Vanguard Newspapers heading to Ikeja for an assignment and that he should release the vehicle documents fell on deaf ears. As I spoke to him, I suddenly remembered that I had important documents, money and my mobile phone in the car and that Ezeh that I left in the car may have disembarked. I rushed back to the car only to find that my phone was missing. But the documents and money were intact. This turned out to be what I needed to humble me.

I knew that what the policemen wanted all along was to extort money from me.
I was only trying to prove that it was wrong to succumb to the extortionist bid. But, having lost my phone and already late for the programme I had in Ikeja, I went to Ezeh to ask him what they required of me to retrieve my car papers and driver’s licence. The constable told me that the matter was no longer in his hands, that I should meet the inspector. I then met the inspector who told me point blank to give Ezeh N2000 in exchange for the documents and driver’s licence. I returned to Ezeh and told him what his boss said but that I didn’t have N2000 as all I had on me was N500. I pleaded with him to take the N500. But Ezeh told me the minimum amount his boss would take was N1000. I replied that since I didn’t have up to N1000, did it mean that I would have to go back home to get the balance?

The constable said it did not matter wherever I chose to find the money and that if I left the place and did not return in good time, I would not meet them. I went back into the car, took N1000 and gave Ezeh who handed it to the inspector. It was only then that the inspector returned my car documents and driver’s licence.

As I left the checkpoint, I looked at my wristwatch. Time was 12.35pm. The inspector and Ezeh had taken 65 minutes of my valuable time because I would not succumb to their extortionist bid even when I had not violated any law. A question I could not immediately find answer to was: If as a journalist I identified myself to the policemen and I still suffered the way I did, what will unscrupulous policemen in the country not do to the less privileged members of the society?

But, the situation is not beyond redemption. What my encounter with the inspector and Ezeh only means is that Ehindero and his lieutenants need to step up their efforts to rid the Police of corrupt officers. And, if you ask me, people like the inspector, Ezeh and other policemen in the team that I encountered at that checkpoint should have no place in our Police Force.

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Vanguard - Apapa,Lagos,Nigeria25 February 2007

A journalist’s encounter with

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Vanguard - Apapa,Lagos,Nigeria
25 February 2007