The manipulated ID cards
Operatives of the Lagos State Task Force has arrested a commercial bus driver who has been impersonating himself as an ‘Inspector’ attached with the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja.
The Chairman of the Task Force, Mr. Olayinka Egbeyemi, who paraded the suspect on Wednesday disclosed that he was arrested same day by the enforcement unit of the Agency while he extorting money from some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers ( NURTW) at Oshodi.
Olayinka Egbeyemi, a Superintendent of Police (SP), disclosed further that the suspect named, Mr. Faith Sunday John, 32 years old, from Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State, claimed to be operating a commercial (yellow bus) plying ‘Egbeda to Shasha’ in the Alimoso area of Lagos.
A statement issued in Lagos Wednesday by Head of Public Affairs Unit of the Lagos State Task Force, Mr. Adebayo Taofiq, copy of which was sent to The DEFENDER revealed that Mr. John was caugth wearing original cardigan and an identity card belonging to the Nigerian Police Force.
According to the statement, the Task Force boss said preliminary investigations revealed that both the cardigan and identity card belonged to his late father, who was an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) before he died last year in Lagos.
The Chairman hinted that “the suspect who stays at No. 37, Anjorin Street, Shasha, Egbeda removed his late father’s passport from the Nigerian Police Force identity card and relaminated his own passport on it.”
He confirmed that after he had been well briefed about the incident, “the Lagos State Commissioner of Police Mr. Fatai Owoseni directed that the suspect be charge to court immediately,” the statement said.
Responding to his interrogators the suspect said, “I was working with a security company (King David Security Limited) before my father died last year. My being owed several months of salary arrears by this company prompted me into using my late father’s Nigerian Police uniform and identity card to extort money from members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and other commercial buses at night around Oshodi,” he said.
The suspect however pleaded with the government to ‘temper justice with mercy’ as he claimed it was a devil’s work.
Some commercial bus drivers who witnessed the arrest hailed the enforcement unit of the Agency claiming that the suspect had been collecting N200 each from different commercial buses plying ‘Egbeda to Shasha’ on daily basis.
A member of the transport union, who simply identified himself as Mr. Kamoru Babalola, disclosed that commercial bus drivers on daily basis complained about the activities of the suspect.
Other commercial bus drivers however commended Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for relocating the Lagos State Task Force from Alausa Ikeja to Oshodi, as their operations in the last few months, he said, had reduced criminal activities within Oshodi and its environs.
