There was palpable tension on Sunday
evening in Igando area as angry commercial vehicle operators protested the
alleged killing of one of them by a policewoman.
There were two conflicting reports
on the cause of the incident and the accompanying violence with some members of
the angry mob accusing the unidentified policewoman of pushing the unidentified
man to death, while another version said that he was epileptic.
The angry protesters blocked the
LASU-Igando Expressway and prevented the police from taking away the corpse,
before they were dispersed with gunshots. The protest continued on Monday as
the protesters mobilised themselves and threatened to set the Igando police
station ablaze.
The police in the state, however,
denied that any policeman or woman was responsible for the death in the Sunday
incident but confirmed that there was an incident that led to the death of one
person.
It was gathered that the deceased
bus driver and an unidentified policewoman were arguing over bribe, when the
driver fell inside the gutter and was drowned.
The policewoman, who was accused of
causing his death at Oye Junction, escaped from the scene immediately and
efforts by other policemen, who arrived at the scene to evacuate the corpse,
were resisted by an angry mob.
An eyewitness, who pleaded
anonymity, told Lagos Metro that “by the time the driver was brought out of the
gutter, he had drowned.” He also said the belief among people in the area was
that the runaway policewoman pushed the late driver, who slipped and fell
inside the gutter.
The acting image maker in charge of
the state police command, Damascus Ozoani, absolved the police of any
complicity in the death of the driver. He said hoodlums prevented the police
from rushing the driver to the hospital, before they later dispersed.
In another incident, a man, Geoffrey
Idehen alleged that his younger brother, Sunday Idehen, has been remanded at
Kirikiri Prison by the police in Igando for daring to beg for an arrested
commercial motorcyclist.
Geoffrey told Lagos Metro: “My
brother was returning from work last Wednesday, when he saw some policemen
assaulting a commercial motorcyclist around the police station. He approached
them and appealed to them to take it easy with the okada man but instead, the
policemen pounced on him and beat him to stupor, before dragging him into their
police station, where he was kept till the following day.”
Geoffrey also alleged that “when
they were beating my brother, another person also tried to intervene and the
two of them were arrested. They held them incommunicado and prevented them from
speaking with their relatives but we got to know that my brother was with them,
when we were searching for him the following day.”
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Society