Community Leader Attacked By Police In Lagos
By Emmanuel Awosika
A community leader in Lagos, Alaba Peters, has accused security operatives attached with the State Police Command of attacking him with an axe while trying to intervene in a dispute.
Peters, indicating the attack had led to his hospitalization, called on the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, to bring the rogue operatives to book.
According to reports, the security operatives, attached to the Anti-Cultism Unit in Gbagada, stormed the Odogunyan area on August 10, 2020 at noon, and arrested some workers of the tricycle drivers union.
The community leader reportedly intervened and questioned the security operatives on their motives for arresting the men.
Apparently, the security operatives had taken offence at his intervention, and brutally attacked him with a axe, even as they drove the other workers from the area.
“Some policemen came to Odogunyan on August 10 to arrest some people and some of our union workers were among those arrested; so, I approached the officers to ask why they arrested the union workers and I was told that because they were not wearing the union’s jacket; the policemen started shooting indiscrimenately and when I asked where they came from, they said they were from the Anti-Cultism Unit at Gbagada.
“When I saw that they were taking the boys away, I went back to meet them in front of the grammar school at Odogunyan to ask them what we could do to get the boys released, but the cops got angry that I came to meet them again and ordered me to sit on the floor and threatened to shoot me.
“I showed them my ID card but they refused to look at it and one of them went into their vehicle to bring an axe and started beating me with it. I want justice to prevail, because I cannot be treated like an animal. I sustained injuries all over my body as a result of the beating,” the community leader narrated.
However, spokesman for the Lagos State Police, SP Bala Elkana, rejected Peters’ claim that he was attacked without reason.
According to him, the victim had been obstructing the security operatives from carrying out their duties in the area.
He said, “Ikorodu used to be a cultists’ den and the Commandant of the Anti-Cultism Unit was directed by the CP to relocate his team to Ikorodu and he did. The targets were the cultists; they were targeted based on intelligence and we took the battle to their doorstep and we were able to reclaim the public space from them and return sanity to Ikorodu.
“In the heat of the operation, the man (Peters) mobilised his thugs to obstruct the police team that came for that assignment, but if in the cause of resisting his obstruction, his rights were infringed upon, definitely, he has a cause to complain and we will investigate that aspect of his complaint. We don’t use axes for operation; it was him and his thugs, who carried axes.”
