Police officers extorting money from motorcyclists in Lagos is nothing new, but the brazenness displayed by officers from Iyana-Iba to Mile 2 make a first-time visitor believe it is their birthright.
Surveying the area on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, FIJ found that female officers also extorted these motorcyclists, and they did this as though it were some government-approved levies.
A motorcyclist in the area told FIJ on Thursday that the police sometimes collected N500 from them during the day, but they must constantly extort N500 every evening.
He said that fellow cyclists now regularly consider the fees they’d remit to the police. They also think about what they’d remit to the workers of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) when carrying passengers.
“As is the norm, an individual must pay them N500 every evening to avoid making them angry. It does not matter whether you have made so much or not. As long as you are on the road, you must pay,” the cyclist told FIJ.
Another cyclist told FIJ that surviving as a transporter in Iba Local Government Area was hard as the police extorted them in the morning, afternoon, and evening. He said that they hardly argued with the police when they asked them for money.
“Unlike the road transporters who may understand you when you tell them you’d give them money later, you cannot tell the police the same thing, and it does not matter if you have worked,” the cyclist said.
As a passenger on a motorcycle for three days in the area last week, this reporter found that the police officers who extorted transporters were in two batches. The first was stationed at Iyana-Iba after the bridge, usually where there is a gridlock. These officers collected money from shuttles and buses, and they did it with their uniforms.
The second set were the police officers, sometimes in mufti, at Iba, who bikers have learnt to pay N500 every evening. On Friday, FIJ saw a fair-skinned policewoman collecting money from bikers who slowed down willingly to offer their money to her.
This is not the first time FIJ has reported the brazen extortion from police officers around Iba, Festac and Mile 2, but nothing has been done. FIJ reported in March that a biker claimed that police officers would confiscate the motorcycles of bikers who were unwilling to pay them.
FIJ called Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Police Spokesperson, for comments, but he did not respond. He had also not responded to the text sent to him at press time.
In March, the last time FIJ spoke with the Lagos PPRO on this matter, he said the passenger, motorcycle rider, and police were all guilty because the state government had banned motorcycles from operating in the state.
He added that the police would take proactive measures to prevent a recurrence of such an issue and that whoever wanted to complain could reach out to the Lagos Police Command Complaint Response Unit (CRU).
However, the ban mentioned by Hundeyin is active in 10 local government areas (LGAs) and 15 local council development areas (LCDAs), of which Ojo, the LGA Iba, is not a part.