That LASTMA official who slapped a Chief Magistrate

Shittu, hiding his face after he was arrested and handcuffed for slapping a Chief Magistrate Pic: PM News

The moment I saw the name of the LASTMA official who slapped a Chief Magistrate last Wednesday, I felt like I knew him. 

When I read the story further down and learnt that the incident happened at Pen Cinema Agege, it clicked. 

Without any doubt at all, that was the same LASTMA official that harassed my wife and I at Pen Cinema early one morning in 2012. The name on his breast tag stuck in my brain for a very long time.

We were coming from the Iju end and trying to turn into Ogba side of Oba Akinjobi on our way to our offices about 6am. The light changed and we stopped. The chap came to us and accused us of not stopping quickly enough when the traffic light changed to red.

He attempted to arrest us but we protested. I asked him to show me the markings on the road that indicated where motorists were supposed to stop. There were none. We couldn’t understand the crime. The light turned red, and we stopped, clear of the way of vehicles passed by the green light. What more did he want?

He said we did not stop early enough and pointed back to where we ought to have stopped. I told him that we were in motion when the light changed from green to red without the interval of yellow and that I stopped the moment I saw the red sign.

He insisted I should open my door for a policeman to enter the vehicle, but I did not oblige him and alighted to argue my point. He argued loudly and rudely that I was mischievous and had no intention of stopping until I saw him.

But I told him he was wrong, and could not rely on clairvoyance to arrest motorists. I had not broken any law and would protest being arrested. The law says stop at red. I did. What was he saying about my intentions? Was he a sorcerer? 

I told him he was on foot, with no spike in his hand for my tyres, no gun or anything. I was piloting a moving vehicle. If I was bent on jumping the red light, he would not be in a position to accost me much less threaten me with arrest. I told him that the very fact that he walked up to me suggested that I had already stopped the vehicle.

The man was very stubborn o, and was completely impervious to truth. He would not back down. Our saving grace was that bystanders, including street boys attracted by the commotion that morning agreed we left a safe distance for the vehicles with the right of way. They told him to let us go. He insulted them.

His own colleagues attempted to pull him from the scene as the area boys around threatened to become violent if he arrested us. I had to resort to serious prayers for God to avert an escalation of the situation, lest we were accused of inciting area boys against law enforcers. Sanity later prevailed.

My wife said something that morning after I vowed to take the matter up with his superiors. She said I should leave him. ‘A ko ni tie niwaju’ (Translating roughly into ‘He will meet his match in future’) she said in consolatory tone.

Now, Taye Shittu has met more than his match. He allegedly slapped a Chief Magistrate, Mrs. Komolafe Abimbola over the same issue of traffic light at the same spot.

Shittu accused Mrs. Abimbola of not obeying the traffic light and ordered her to come out of her car.

The woman was said to have followed Shittu’s instruction after which there was an argument between them.

During the argument Shittu allegedly slapped Mrs. Abimbola and she sustained injury on her face.

The victim reported the assault at Pen Cinema Police Station and Shittu was promptly arrested by the police.

While confirming the incident, Lagos State Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Damatus Ozoani, said the accused will be charged to court after the conclusion of police investigation.

A former LASTMA official who asked for anonymity, told PM News that the attitude of Shittu was an embarrassment to the authority.

Road trap: Police, LASTMA replace muggers at Mile 2

On the eve of Xmas, I wrote about muggers' exploits at Mile Two oke.

Today about 10 am, I passed the same spot and I have both good and bad news. First, the good news: the bad boys are gone from the spot, probably because of what I wrote, or because a powerful person experienced the same thing and organised a police raid.

Now to the bad news: LASTMA officials and police officers are now at the spot, and they are not there to help motorists, sadly. It's their brand new meal ticket.

I was coming from Osodi and wanted to link the bridge that leads to Mile Two Bus Stop below at the emergency ramp created just after where FESTAC buses load. Surprisingly, a LASTMA official and a policeman were rushing at me, but could not quickly cross the road to where I was.

They waved at me to stop. I tried to see the name tag on the LASTMA official, there was none; first red flag. Second red flag: the expressions on their faces were of someone who had just witnessed murder, and could scarcely wait for vehicles to pass to lay his hands on the 'suspect'.

I tried to figure out what I could have done wrong, I couldn’t. But with the red flags, waiting to find out would be a grave mistake. Besides, even genuine LASTMA guys these days are adept at pulling a rabbit out of the hat with uncommon ease. With the newly passed Lagos Traffic Law, you can never be too sure what they have up their sleeves. I waved to them in return and zoomed off. The policeman rushed at me and tried to open my door, but it was locked.

My suspicion is that the guys were after me for taking the emergency ramp, which motorists have taken for ages. It was actually created over a year ago by the authorities as an alternative exit for motorists coming from Osodi and going to Mile 2, Orile, or back to Osodi.

There is usually chaotic traffic at the FESTAC exit, especially with the FESTAC and Okokomaiko-bound buses staying on the road to pick passengers. The ramp has succeeded mainly in improving the driving experience of motorists at that location as people who are not going in the direction of FESTAC or the Mile 2- Badagry Expressway no longer need to contest the main exit with those who are. 

But apparently, those who thought up the smart alternative among the traffic officials have since moved on, leaving behind those who see an opportunity to cash in.

So my advice to you is that when next you are on that route, it’s better you take the FESTAC exit, or you go to Berger to make a u-turn.

Wish you safe motoring

Confessions of a US traffic cop, lessons for LASTMA

 

Nigerian police officers, LASTMA officials, FRSC men and others involved in road safety and traffic law enforcement have a lot to learn from this American police officer, especially in the area of use of discretion and responsible traffic law enforcement.

Mike Brucks retired from the El Paso Police Department as a traffic cop last May after 22 years and almost 40,000 tickets, by his estimation. He was featured by Yahoo!

 Here are some of his stories from the road and tips for motorists looking to avoid a ticket.

Besides speeding, which is the reason for most tickets, what's most likely to get a traffic cop's attention?

 

Seatbelts, cell phones, red lights, and stop signs. I concentrate on all the things that can cause an accident. There are some cops who write tickets for expired plates, for having no insurance or registration, but you're not going to crash because of any of that. I focused on safety issues—that's what I like to do.

 

Do traffic cops think it's cheating to hide behind billboards?

 

No. You've got a radar detector; you know where we hide. If you are thinking we are hiding somewhere, it's because you're speeding.

 

Do you have favourite hiding places?

 

I stay on the freeway mostly. That's where there are more speeders. I'll park under overpasses, on bridges. I need to be able to start the bike and accelerate to go after someone. If there are a lot of exits, I can miss [a speeder] who can maybe get off at an exit, and then it's too late to catch him.

 

How much leeway do you give someone before writing them a speeding ticket?

 

The speed limit in Texas used to be 60 mph, [and] well, out on the clear road where there's a lot of visibility I give people leeway. I wouldn't write tickets until they got to 80 mph. I've never worked an area where the speed limit drops a lot without warning, what I call a trap. If there's a new speed limit that's lower, it [takes] time for people to get used to it and I don't write tickets there.

 

What can a driver say to get out of a ticket?

 

When someone tells me that a family member has just been sent to the hospital and they're on their way, how can I ticket them for that? I tell them that they're not being safe, that they need to slow down and stay safe. That's about it.

 

I think now it's much more of a rat-race world than it was 30 years ago. The workforce has generated that. People have to be at work on time or risk getting fired, kids have to be picked up and taken places—it's just citizens in a hurry. Ninety-eight percent of the people I stop are law-abiding good citizens, and they say they have no reason to speed. That's an easy ticket. They're not happy, but I could go months without any problems, without anyone cussing me out. I wrote a lot of warnings, too, but it all depends on the situation, if they were being safe.

Are speed limits too low?

 

No, the traffic engineers, at least in Texas, are pretty good. It's not that some parts of the highway are safer for speeding, it's that drivers aren't always paying attention. People die on lonely deserted stretches of road too. There are a lot of times drivers aren't concentrating. They need to understand you're going 100 feet per second on the highway. Above 75 mph things just happen so fast, [whether it's] a flat tire, a coyote, wind, dirt, or rocks. It's not that much better now that cars are safer; reaction times are still the same.

 

What's the toughest ticket you've had to write?

 

I clocked a woman coming down from New Mexico on Highway 54 at 111 mph. She had just been stopped for going 90 mph 15 minutes [earlier] in New Mexico. Everybody has a reason, and I want to know it. I always ask why someone was speeding, and that's just to open things up. I want to know what they're thinking, if they need my help for something. She had been crying, and the tears didn't just start—they'd been going on a long time, you can tell. She was on her way to a motel in El Paso to catch her husband who was shacked up with another woman there, cheating. How do you write a ticket for that?

 

Who's the craziest speeder you've seen?

 

I stopped a guy going 136 mph. I caught him mostly because he thought he lost me. I came up beside him and blocked his front wheel on the curb. The hardest part after that was now I have to be courteous and respectful, although he could have killed someone, and that makes me angry. It's really too bad, he was a good kid, never been in trouble, but now he had to go to jail for felonious evading, and that's really going to wreck his life.

 

When do you not chase a speeder?

 

I clocked a guy on a crotch-rocket bike doing 189 mph. Just let him go. Since police departments began to get sued for chasing speeders, around 1995, there's a fine line. You have to determine if you can catch him, if chasing him will cause an accident for him, for you, for the public. There's no way to catch anyone like that. ..

Xmas tragedy: LASTMA beats man to death

Popoola, A sympathiser with the deceased wife, Modupe (right). Image: Punch

A 54 year old man left his home early on Christmas eve to hustle for money to celebrate the Yuletide, but did not make it back home alive, thanks to two Lagos Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) officials.

The commercial bus driver, Isaac Popoola, was allegedly beaten to death while trying to resist impoundment of his bus for yet unknown traffic offences.

The bus conductor, Aremu Salawu, who witnessed the incident, told the Punch that the LASTMA officials, Adesanya Olatunde and Oludele Ogunrinde, assaulted Popoola at about 6.30am around Brown Bus Stop resulting in his death.

He said the deceased’s bus conveying 17 passengers from Igando/Isheri was approaching Brown Junction when a LASTMA pick-up van crossed the bus.

The leader of the LASTMA officials, according to Salawu, ordered two of his men to impound the vehicle and take it to the agency’s office.

Salawu alleged that Olatunde hit Salawu’s head with the metallic head of the seat belt and banged his head against the steering and the door frame of the bus many times while they were both struggling for the steering.

Salawu said, “Baba (Popoola) held on to the steering asking what his offence was. But the LASTMA man (Olatunde) said it was his commander that ordered him to seize the bus.

“When Baba refused to leave the steering, the LASTMA man started hitting Popoola’s head against the steering and the door frame. He did this so many times, until he was unable to talk again.

“I then rushed to Mosafejo Police Station where I made a statement and people who were watching the scenario were able to apprehend one of the LASTMA men (Olatunde). They brought him to the police station before we were transferred to Area F.

Olatunde has been apprehended, while the second LASTMA official is on the run.

Two issues leapt to my mind when I read this story. Why would LASTMA officials struggle for the steering with this elderly man? Since his vehicle had been blocked, why was it necessary or urgent to forcibly subdue him?

Secondly, why was this man not rushed to the hospital immediately by the officials or even the bystanders or sympathizers?

For an incident that happened at 6:30 am, is it not strange that the body of the victim was still available to be snapped by the reporter at the police station at 4pm?

Nigerians have to stop this primitive habit of concluding someone is dead simply because he seems not to be breathing or has no pulse. Elsewhere in the world, people are revived at the hospital after they had seemed to lose their pulses.

That gentleman might be alive now if he had been rushed to the hospital.

 

My close shave with jail term

Believe it or not, there's a 'No Entry' sign behind this umbrella at
Ijaye Bus Stop along Lagos-Abeokuta Express way

Voila! There it is. You only need to come down from your vehicle and squeeze behind the bread seller to see it. The traffic law is against street trading as well, but the police would probably not go after this bread seller until some officer's pregnant wife has massive craving for sun-bathed bread!



Writers are like prophets. They have no power of knowing the exact time what they predict will come to past.

In August, upon the imminence of the new Lagos Traffic Law being signed by the Governor of Lagos State, I pointed out the ease with which many law abiding Nigerians could walk into jail, simply driving from one part of Lagos to another. Today, I experienced it.

I lived in the Millennium Estate, Ijaye-Ojokoro for about four years up to last October. For those not conversant with that area, the estate is off Ijaye Bus Stop, along the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway.

From eternity, people going to the nearby Local Council headquarters, the customary court and the marriage registry inside the complex, the popular Jankara market, the Millennium Estate in reference, and Agbado Crossing exited the expressway at Ijaye Bus Stop.

I was visiting the area again today around 11 am and exited the expressway as usual at Ijaye Bus Stop only to find myself in the waiting hands of fully armed policemen. One with AK 47 in hand, barked at me to park and alight from my vehicle. With the urgency and menace in his voice some people might actually think a notorious robbery kingpin had just walked into a carefully planned police ambush.

I did as I was told, and waited for further instructions. The officer soon marched me to a spot on the expressway to show me a 'No Entry' sign, tucked neatly behind the huge umbrella of a bread seller right beside the expressway. Sweet relief! At least, it was not a case of me matching the description of a Boko Haram cell commander.



This bus was parked by the entry to Ijaye, just beside
the bread seller, when I drove in. I took this picture, went to
argue some more and returned to take the bread seller,
by which time it had been driven off.

I asked the officer if that was all, and he glared at me with open hostility. Then, he took a few moments to educate me that I had just committed a very serious offence of plunging into a one-way street. 
 
I could not have possibly guessed that the road had become one-way traffic, because it was quite wide. The only trouble the road had always had especially in the evenings was that roadside traders took considerable portions of the road on either side to display their goods, while yellow buses plying Agbado Crossing converted a whole lane on the right side to motorpark, constricting human and vehicular traffic. One would naturally think that those were the issues that needed to be fixed to restore sanity to that road. It would be hard to find any resident of that area who would endorse changing that popular access road to a one-way traffic street. 

But beyond all that, two things were clearly wrong with the 'No Entry' sign by the road side at the time I passed. One, the road sign had been completely swallowed from view by a huge umbrella providing shade for a bread seller. Secondly, a broken-down bus was parked by the side of the bread seller, sealing the fate of hapless motorists coming from Abule Egba.

I explained all these to the officer, and he had  a ready answer: “Ignorance is not an excuse in law.” He delivered it with such a condescending air as to make it clear such a simple thing was what I ought to have known if my education was not suspect.

To my argument about a bus and a bread seller's umbrella completely covering the supposed sign, he said I could canvass those fine points to the judge on Monday morning. He might be so kind as to accept them for my flagrant violation of Lagos Traffic Law. But before then, could I be so kind as to stop disturbing him with my 'grammar'?

Dozens of other motorists were walking into the booby trap by the minute. Some were arrested, but seeing that they had more than they could handle at any point in time, the police team would routinely ask the excess ‘traffic violators’ to reverse and take alternative routes. For those under arrest, some brisk business was underway, with the nearby petrol filling station acting as the negotiation area.

I wasn’t done disturbing the officer with my 'grammar'. I followed him around as he apprehended other hapless motorists, and argued that the team ought to use their discretion to release people with a warning and arrest only those who refused to heed their instructions, but I might as well have been speaking Greek for all the difference it made.

He told me my offence was a 'jail-able' offence and he did not write the law. The only reason he could contemplate using his discretion in my favour was if I could come up with N10,000! At that juncture, I let him be and sought out his superior officer who watched his boys from a distance.

He turned out to be receptive. I advanced the same points as earlier enumerated and he quite agreed that the sign was obstructed, even though he made no move to correct the situation. He argued that even if the umbrella had not been there, people who had used the road for years would still drive in oblivious of the sign. 

In the end, he used his discretion to let me go and sin no more. That is how come you are reading this o! Otherwise, I would have been cooling my heels in some detention room awaiting trial tomorrow morning!

On a serious note, I asked myself a question as I drove away: would I have been so courageous to insist on not paying a bribe if the superior officer had not used his discretion to let me go, especially considering that the offence carries a jail sentence? Would I not have happily negotiated the asking price?

Many years ago, I recall telling a mischievous local council traffic official that rather than give him the bribe he was asking for, I would happily pay into the coffers of government the official fine which was five times  the bribe he asked for.

Could I have courageously said the same to those policemen that Sunday morning when I knew the offence, contrived or not, carried a jail term?

FRSC to issue commercial drivers licence

Osita Chidoka, Corps Marshal, FRSC

For those who drive to make a living, one more thing to worry about. A new licence just for you is in the making. As from December 3, you will have to get it to escape the wrath of f FRSC.

And for those in Lagos, having this new licence does not save you from the wrath of LASTMA o! You must also get your your LASDRI certification.

Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) said its commercial drivers licence will be launched nationwide on December 3, 2012.

The Kaduna State Sector Commander, Olumide Michael Olagunju, disclosed this yesterday during a stakeholders’ forum in Kaduna.

According to him, the need to issue commercial drivers licence has become imperative following the rate of road crashes, some of which he said were as a result of unqualified commercial drivers who ply the roads. 

Olagunju said that for any driver to be issued the licence, he would have been made to go through medical certification to include, in particular, visual test and mental balance, among others, to ensure that the driver was medically fit to drive.

He warned, however, that upon the formal launching of the commercial drivers licence, any commercial driver who fails to get the licence would be sanctioned appropriately.

LASG to seize vehicles parked on sidewalk

 

Governor Babatunde Fashola. Image: Punch

The Lagos State Government is set to put an end to indiscriminate parking of vehicles on sidewalks.

 

Governor Babatunde Fashola on Sunday said there was a need to ensure sanity in people’s attitude to driving and road usage.

 

He said the Ministry of Physical Planning and other relevant agencies had been instructed to begin aggressive sanitisation of the state roads by removing vehicles causing obstruction to free vehicular movement.

 

The governor, who was fielding questions from Lagosians during the celebration of his 2,000 days in office said, “I have instructed the Ministry of Physical Planning and other ministries concerned to go out and remove vehicles from sidewalks.

 

“If you cannot contain your vehicles inside your premises, we will come and take them away.”

 

The governor also urged traders in the state to desist from trading on the sidewalks, saying it prevents people living with disabilities from having unhindered space to use.