Penultimate week, precisely on the night of Saturday, 23rd April 2022, three indigenes of Kajola in Odogbo Local Government Area (LGA) of Ondo State reportedly feared dead at a Police Checkpoint, shortly after they were fatally knocked down by a ‘hit-and-run’ driver.
According to reports, the deceased persons, who included the village head of the said area, were prior to the accident riding on a motorcycle, on the Lagos-Ore Expressway in Ondo State.
It’s noteworthy that the residents of the area had accused the police of being responsible for the untimely death of the three, owing to their illicit activities on the road, on a daily basis.
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Reacting to the accusation, the Ondo State Police Command, on Sunday, 24th April 2022, stated that its officers were not responsible for the death of the three accident victims.
The command’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Funmilayo Odunlami, while refuting the allegation, claimed that the victims’ death was not due to police recklessness but flouting of traffic rules.
She disclosed that the deceased used a motorcycle without a headlamp, adding they were riding on a one-way route, thus leading to a head-on collision with a speeding vehicle.
“The death of the victims was not caused by the police, as is being circulated. They died as a result of flouting traffic rules. The deceased were riding a motorcycle with no headlamp on a one-way route and had a head-on collision with a speeding vehicle. They have died now and are not able to tell the story.
“Youths should find a way of registering their grievances. Lynching police officers or burning down police station at every slightest opportunity is barbaric.
“Police are there to protect them, while there are several emergency numbers through which they can report issues to the police headquarters. They should not take laws into their hands.” The Police spokesperson said.
The youth in the area had accused the police of extortion at a checkpoint in the area, which they described as illegal. A witness, Funmi Olowogboye told newsmen that the accident occurred when the police officers were trying to extort the victims while a speeding vehicle trying to escape arrest crushed them to death.
The youths had, in their large numbers, swooped on Kajola Police Station with the corpses of the deceased, and attempted to burn it down.
It took the combined efforts of police operatives and other security agents to prevent the youth from lynching the personnel and razing the police station as well as restoring normalcy in the area.
It could be that the Commissioner of Police in the State, Oyeyemi Oyediran had, upon assumption of duty, ordered the immediate dismantling of all illegal roadblocks and checkpoints on the Ore-Benin Expressway.
Whatever that might have caused the accident, the truth remains that the various checkpoints of the point, in the guise of protecting the lives property of the citizens, end up constituting more nuisance than good.
On several occasions, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) had ordered dismantling of every illicit checkpoint along Nigeria’s major roads, yet till date, the ugly situation remains the same.
It’s no longer news that any IGP that comes on board wouldn’t hesitate to issue a directive as regards illegal checkpoints on the expressways across the federation, but it seems the order keeps falling on deaf ears.
This is the reason many concerned Nigerians have been compelled to believe that the various police authorities or bosses in the country have their own share of the tolls being collected at the checkpoints situated at their respective jurisdictions.