Extortion and police harassment are among the common ailments faced by commercial and private vehicle drivers in Nigeria. There is this popular saying that “the police are your friends” but the reverse seems to be the case of Nigerians and I wonder why they have chosen to make life unbearable to the masses that they ought to protect.
So today I visited my elder sister in Badagry and you need to see the way the Policemen were extorting drivers by taking money from them forcefully. This went on till I got down from the bus. And the funny thing is that they feel it is their right to take those money from the drivers/ conductors as if they worked for it
The question is….. Are they not been paid? Which right do they have to take money from the drivers / conductors on the highway? Sometimes I doubt if they are real police officers.
Most of the time they chase other vehicles in a dangerous way just to exploit the commercial drivers. They intimidate the drivers by using their power to threaten them all because they are in their uniform.
This has to stop…. The government really needs to look into this, there should be an orientation for these men. There should be proper monitoring and a law should be put in place to curb this dirty habit and that law should be enforced.
Have you encountered the policemen on the highway demanding money from motorists particularly the commercial vehicles? Please share your views with me…
Thank You! One 