Trouble Brews At Igando Over Police, Tout Extortion Of Bus Drivers

BY INNOCENT NORA

A local adage has it that when trouble dey sleep,iyanga go wake am, and that is the best way to describe what is happening at Iganda area in Lagos,

A collision between policemen on traffic control there and touts is testing the patience of commercial drivers and threatening the peace of the neigbourhood.

The former had been extorting the drivers and the latter do not seem to want it again.

A proof of the above happened on Sunday, December 22, when The Eagle correspondent witnessed a flare up of a commercial driver simply identified as Balogun against the touts fronting for a police woman at the bus stop.

The police woman simply identified as Monica, using a male decoy had attempted to collect for the second time, what is described as the National Union of Road Transporters (NURTW) fee from the driver, who promptly refused.

His attempt at explaining to the errand man that he had earlier paid attracted saw the man raining abuses on him.

And that was he signaled the police woman, and the latter came and stood in the way of vehicle hindering it from moving.

Though the driver was ready for trouble but he was prevailed on at the end of the day.

However many people were obviously angry at the oppressive character of the police woman and the touts at the bus stop which they have described as recurrent.

An eye witness said, these police instead of doing their jobs, join forces with the area boys  to collect money from driver.

He said refusal to pay usually resulted in their keys being seized by the tout, and for which they are penalized before they could retrieve it.

Condemning the multiple levies, another passenger, Femi Fasan said most of the front men were not usually of NURTW but work hand in hand with the police.

“This is why some of us don’t drop passengers at igando, because these police people work as thief’s instead of for the public. They join hands with this area boys and rip us off our hard work while they go home satisfied at the end of the day”,, Fadipe, another bus driver said.
Another passenger said, the police force needed to re-orientate its men rather than allow the rank and file to join the touts in extorting people.

It took the arrival of another policeman to settle the matter on the day in question.