PICTURE: Fake police ‘command’ where okada riders are detained

Posted by admin Headlines, Nigerian Police Saturday, January 1st, 2011

Area ‘O’ Police Command, Olaniyan Street, Oke-Ira, Ogba, Lagos

For many commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as okada riders, who operate in the Ogba area of Lagos, these are certainly not the best of times. The source of their woes are unknown policemen, who extort money from them daily by imposing sundry charges. The same people are alleged to have set up shop at a new command post, which they named ‘Area O’ at Olaniyan Street, 2nd Junction, Oke Ira, Ogba.

An okada rider, on the condition of anonymity, said, “These policemen use several tactics to set us up. Sometimes we are arrested when passengers who are supposed to be policemen refuse to wear crash helmets. Instead of arresting the passenger, they arrest us, seize our bikes, and take them to Area O, which is the designated police station for retrieving seized motorcycles in Ogba,” he said.

Also, these policemen arrest commercial motorcyclists for causing ‘obstruction’ on the road and for ‘overloading’ their bikes. The source went on, “You know there is a motor park at Ogba. Whenever our passengers try to alight there, we are arrested for causing obstruction. At other times, a police officer would flag down a bike under the pretence of going somewhere.

“While he is doing this, two of his colleagues will be loitering around. The minute a suitable fee has been reached, a second policeman will join the first on the bike. This will be a reason for the third policeman to arrest the okada rider for carrying two passengers irrespective of the fact that the passengers are policemen also.”

Unlike the typical police station, ‘Area O’ is a small bungalow squeezed between residential buildings at the end of Olaniyan Street. Save for the trademark police colours of blue, yellow and green, it could easily pass for a normal neighborhood dispensary.

At this supposed police station, there seems to be no divisional police officer in charge. Only three officers, a lady and two men in plain clothes were seen when CRIME DIGEST visited.

A lone motorcycle was parked in front of the station and two men, obviously commercial motorcyclists by their appearance, waited. A third man sat on the ground looking resigned, just as another made frantic telephone calls, possibly trying to reach colleagues who would bail him out.

Our source pointed accusing fingers at policemen from the Pen Cinema Division. He said, “We know these men. They operate from Pen Cinema down to Ogba. The policemen who arrest us aren’t the same officers we pay to. They just dump us at Area O with their agents who are also policemen, but always in plain clothes. The cost of getting your bike back is between N1,000 and N4,000. I have lost count of the number of times I have been arrested. It is now a daily exercise.

“Sometimes, police officers would come in commercial buses to arrest as many as 10 okada riders and conduct an instant search on them.”

Several motorcyclists confirmed to CRIME DIGEST that they had been arrested and made to part with money. “After emptying our pockets, they would give us N200 to buy water or to pay the fare back to our homes. Trying to appeal to their humanity is courting trouble; they would instantly cock their guns and threaten to shoot,” one of the cyclists said.

Another okada rider lamented, “This is very bad. Some of us here are graduates. Unemployment has pushed us to make a living through commercial motorcycle, but Lagos policemen are out to frustrate us. We have our own families to take care of and some of us are still putting ourselves through school with this same source of livelihood.”

But when contacted on the issue, the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, denied the existence of such a command. “To my knowledge, no such police command exists. Area G is the largest police command in Lagos and I don’t know of any police command that exists at Oke-Ira,” he said.wp_posts