By Ifeoma Ikem
Trigger-happy policemen attached to Makinde Police Station, Oshodi, Lagos State, harassed and threatened to kill a senior Correspondent with The Guardian Newspapers, Mr. Seye Olumide, while on official duty.
Olumide who drove through Makinde Street which housed the police division, was said to have been stopped at a roadblock mounted in front of the Police Station by some officers and members of the Lagos Neighborhood Safety Corps (LNSC) on duty.
It was learnt that while Olumide was trying to identify himself to the men who had ordered him to stop for checking, two other officers jumped out of a police vehicle right behind him and began to manhandled him.
Narrating his ordeal to Saharaweekly,Olumide said: “at about 3:08 p.m.yesterday, while driving to the office through Makinde Street, Mafoluku, Oshodi, I met a road barricade manned by some officers and members of the Lagos Neighborhood Safety Corps (LNSC) right in front of Makinde Police Station. I introduced myself but was told to turn back. I tried to explain to the officers that I was on essential duty but none of them listened to me.
“In the process, a bus carrying some officers had queued behind my vehicle and the occupants were shouting on top of their voices that I should leave the road. But there was no way I could have reversed or made a turn, just as it was impossible for me to climb the barricade”.
He stated further that: “suddenly, two gun-wielding officers came down from the bus and tried to deflate my front and back tyre. At that point, I alighted from the car to explain to them there was no way I could turn since their vehicle was at the back and a barricade in front. One of the armed officers suddenly grabbed my clothe by the neck, dragged me to my car and hit my head on the body of the car, threatening to shoot.
“While this was on, the officers and the LNSC corps manning the barricade who had stopped me kept shouting at me: ‘You will just die for nothing’. Some of them even threatened to confiscate my car at the station”.
It was learnt that the situation was brought under a little control as a police officer, who had apparently been watching the barbaric behaviour of his colleagues from afar, sauntered out of the station and ordered that the barricade be removed for the journalist to go since there was no space for him to move his vehicle out of the way for the charging officers.
Saharaweekly further learnt that Olumide had since lodged a complaint with the Lagos State Police spokesman, Bala Elkana, who promised to contact the station’s DPO for necessary verification and actions