THE leadership of the Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA) is in a dilemma over what to do with corrupt policemen deployed at traffic control points in Lagos.
Investigations conducted by SENTRY revealed that while LASTMA officials are trying to carry out their duty of ensuring free flow of traffic with remarkable civility, inept policemen deployed to give them protection have literally hijacked their jobs and have turned traffic control into a money-spinning venture.
Consequently, they have devised a means by which they create traffic bottlenecks so that motorists supposedly given the green light are stuck in the middle until the yellow and red lights meet them on the wrong spot. The mischievous policemen then jump into the vehicles of the helpless motorists to harass them until they part with some money.
At Cappa area in Oshodi, for instance, their antics are said to have become a source of embarrassment to LASTMA officials who often have to watch helplessly as the errant policemen harass innocent motorists, dragging them to LASTMA’s yard in Oshodi and forcing them to cough out sums ranging between 6,000 and 10,000 naira which, of course, end up in their private pockets.
A LASTMA henchman told SENTRY that the agency had grown sick and tired of the antics of the errant policemen. But he said there was little that LASTMA officials could do about them, “because they are deployed at the traffic control points to give our men protection against notorious motorists and criminal elements.”
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