Amidst complaints of sundry excesses of some officers of the Lagos Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade by frustrated citizens, Gboyega Alaka attempts an X-ray of the agency’s activities. He also sought audience with the agency’s management.
When an agency instituted by a government to curb indiscipline ends up with its fingers soiled in all manners of indiscipline acts, including extortion, bribery and unruliness, then there may be need for worry, or at best a review of its activities.
This probably sums up the story of KAI (Kick Against Indiscipline); an agency originally set up in 2003 by the Lagos State government to “effect a change in attitude and promote clean and hygienic culture among the people of Lagos State,” but of which many Lagosians now have tales of woe to tell.
While evident positive changes in the conduct of the citizenry have been noticeable in most parts of the state, there have also been complaints of misplaced priority in the conduct of the brigade and a deliberate or calculated effort by its officers to extort money, especially from ignorant citizens, who run afoul of the state’s civil laws. Many complain that the brigade has deviated from its original mandate of preventing street trading and promoting clean environment, to fishing for unsuspecting people and visitors, crossing the highways and feasting on poor traders struggling to make a living in a hard economy.
From Cele Bus Stop along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, to Oshodi under Bridge on Agege Motor Road to Oke-Odo in Abule-Egba, Onipanu, Palm- Grove, Obanikoro, all along Ikorodu Road through to Ojota, regarded as the number one entry point to Lagos; the stories have not been too complimentary. While one cannot deny the visible orderliness attained in some hitherto notorious areas like Oshodi, Cele by Oshodi Apapa and Ikotun; the question has been about the method through which the officers achieve it. Many accuse the KAI guys of using brute force. They wonder why a civil brigade should be so brutal in its quest to arrest and insist that the body has become wayward, negating the primary aim for which it was set up. They cite cases where traders have been chased into moving vehicles, such as the incident that happened on Ikorodu Road last year.
23 year-old Nkechi spoke of how a certain KAI officer almost got her killed all in a bid to arrest her for crossing the expressway at Onipanu Bus Stop. She admitted to being wrong to have attempted to cross the road, but said the manner in which the KAI officer waylaid her mid-way into the expressway so scared her that in a bid to retrace her step and avoid being arrested, she almost ran into a moving bus.”It was only by the grace of God that I am alive today,” she recounted. “I only escaped by an inch, having stopped in my tracts in time. I bet they must have killed so many people in that manner. Please tell them that that is crude and counter-productive,” she concluded.
At Oshodi, a former IT trainee with a media house, who would rather not have her name mentioned, narrated her ordeal. “I had just crossed the road at Ojota successfully, when two men in lemon and brown and khaki uniform held me by the hand and started dragging me to a spot, where there were several other men in the same uniform. It took me a while to understand that I may have contravened some laws. I suddenly remembered that this is Lagos and all the stories I’d heard back in Osogbo, where I grew up, about people being arrested for crossing the highway came to me. I’d thought all the while that they were fabricated stories.”She recalled.
But her story did not end there. She narrated how they took her to corner behind their vehicle and demanded money from her. “They said if I didn’t want to be put in their van (Black Maria) and driven straight to prison, I should settle them with two thousand naira. When I told them that I am only an IT student and new in Lagos, they asked if I was willing to pay my way with my body. One of them actually tried to pull me to himself and even asked to see my breasts. It was when I told them that I was working with a newspaper house and threatened to call the police and report to their office that they soft-pedalled and let me go.”
Joe, a journalist with a national daily is irked at the fact that an organisation mandated to enforce discipline has become so enmeshed in untoward acts. Recounting his own experience, he said on one occasion he was arrested for crossing the highway at Palm Grove Bus stop along Ikorodu Road, but said what annoyed him was that rather than take him to court and make him pay the fine, the officers began demanding money from him and other offenders. Said Joe: “While others were busy paying their ways to freedom with whatever they could afford, I just stood aside. Later one of them came to me and said, ‘Ol’ boy you no go bail yourself? But I told them to take me to their mobile court and that rather than pay bribe to them, I’d rather pay the fine. This surprised them and after much foot-dragging and deliberations, they told me to go. This proved to me that they are mainly out to make their own money rather than do the job they were mandated to do.”
Continuing, Joe spoke of how the KAI officers even use touts to grab and arrest people crossing the expressways. “I’ve seen cases where innocent people crossing the expressway were grabbed by the hands and dragged to KAI officers. Apparently, they have discovered that people will not fall prey once they see uniformed officers around, so they employ touts whom the innocent citizens are hardly wary of until they are arrested. If they’re desperate, why use touts to arrest people. Sometimes, they even use them as baits. In such cases, you see the touts crossing and think it is safe to cross and before you know it, you’re in their dragnet.”
“The worst part,” Joe argued “is the fact that in arresting offenders crossing the highways, the officers only target well-dressed, decent-looking people, whom they feel they can make money from. I have seen a case, where a number of people were crossing and they only went for the guys in suit and ties. That, to me, is in itself criminal.”
He advised the government to erect barricades like they’ve done in some places to other vulnerable spots to deter people, if in fact that is the government’s motive.
A pact with the street traders
Another worrisome trend that people, especially market women, complain about is that roadside traders in most markets now form a pact with KAI officials in their respective areas by contributing certain amount of money, which they give to the KAI officials as bribe in order to be left alone to perpetrate their street trading act. It is said that once these traders comply, there is usually a truce and the officials look the other way, while street trading goes on. By implication, this leads to inconvenience for the road users, who are left to manage whatever is left of the road.
They allege that the officers now have a list of the names of roadside traders in most markets, where each of them pay as much as N500 every week. It is said that those who decline to pay usually end up being harassed, and their goods seized.
An attempt to however confirm this allegation from the market women in the Ikotun Market in Ikotun area of Lagos met a brickwall, as the women vehemently denied the existence of any such pact. One woman, who sells fresh fish by the roadside said almost aggressively, “Who told you? There is no such practice here.”
Asked how come she was selling her fish by the roadside (this was around 5pm) and if she didn’t have a stall or shop inside the market, she said she only relocates to the roadside in the evening, when the KAI officers would have closed for the day. She confessed that customers would only stop to patronise them if they are by the road because most Lagosians are always in a hurry, especially at the close of work.
On whether she didn’t know that activities of people like her contribute to the daily traffic gridlock on that side of the road, her reaction was “How?”
Another woman who was within earshot of this conversation however interjected that “Look, the overzealousness of those KAI people is too much. Are they the first to do the job. Everybody knows that Ikotun is a traffic hold-up area, yet they keep harassing us and blaming us for the traffic. Vehicles have their job to do, while we also have our business to do. I don’t see how we stand in their way. In fact, that is why I now come out only in the evenings, when they would have gone away with their nuisance.”
Clash of interests
Another feeler from areas like Ikorodu speaks of how KAI’s insistence on no street trading has caused clashes even with the local land owners, who complain that they are no longer able to earn revenue from the traders. A resident of Ikorodu, Ademola Adeoye, said the culture has been that some people, who claim to be representatives of the omoniles (land owners) collect fees from the street traders. He allege that even touts (agberos) collect their own, thereby making the job of the KAI officers difficult.
Adeoye said this is the pattern in virtually all the markets in the state and advised the government to first sort out that part of the set up, if it truly wants KAI to function effectively.
When asked if he is aware that the traders also contribute money to bribe the KAI officers, he said “That may not be out of place. You know already that corruption is endemic in the country and it will take greater effort than we’re putting in to significantly curb it.”
Brute force
Another major complaint against the KAI officers is the brute force which they use to arrest so-called offenders. Fidelis, a trader at Oshodi was an eye-witness to one of such arrests, and lamented that ‘It was horrible.’ He said the man had just crossed the express at Ojota and because he was putting up a little resistance, three of them descended on him, pulling and tugging at his trousers and suit, while others were hitting and dragging him. And this was a man fully dressed in suit. They didn’t even consider the fact that he may be going to an office for an appointment or for a job interview. By the time they finished with him, he was an eyesore. I bet that man, if he did not end up in their ‘Black Maria,’ would surely have to go back home. I think that is crude. They need to be tutored to be more civil in the dispensation of their duties.
“I also do not like the way they put people through corporal punishment, as if they were school children and shove them into their Black Maria, as if they were already convicted. ” Fidelis rounded off.
Asake, a trader along Alade Axis of Allen Avenue down to Ikeja Medical Centre area by Allen Avenue said the manner in which KAI officers swoop on traders smacks of petty thievery and sadism. He likened them to rats, whose main aim is to pilfer and that they do this under the guise of doing their job. “Even some of us that are not on the major road still get harassed. How do they want us to survive?”
