10th May, 2017
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
The operatives of the Lagos State Task Force have arrested a commercial bus driver for impersonating the police.
The suspect, Faith Sunday John, 32, claimed he was an Inspector attached to the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, Lagos.
Chairman of the Lagos State Task Force, Olayinka Egbeyemi who paraded the suspect, disclosed that he was arrested on Wednesday, while extorting money from some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers ( NURTW) in Oshodi.
Egbeyemi disclosed further that the suspect, from Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State who claimed to be operating a commercial bus plying between Egbeda and Shasha was caught wearing original cardigan and an identity card belonging to the Nigerian Police Force.
The Chairman said preliminary investigations revealed that both the cardigan and identity card belonged to his late father who was an Assistant Superintendent of Police before he died last year in Lagos.
According to him, the suspect, who lived at No. 37, Anjorin Street, Shasha, Egbeda removed his late father’s passport from the Nigerian Police Force identity card and re-laminated his own passport on it.
He said the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni directed that the suspect be charge to court immediately.
According to the suspect “I was working with a security company (King David Security Limited) before my father died last year. The owing of several salary arrears by this company prompted me using my late father’s Nigerian Police uniform and identity cards to extort money from members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and other commercial buses at night around Oshodi,” he said.
The suspect, however, pleaded with the government to ‘temper justice with mercy’, claiming it was the devil’s work.
Some commercial bus drivers who witnessed the arrest hailed the enforcement unit of the agency claiming that the suspect collects N200 each from different commercial buses commuting between Egbeda and Shasha on daily basis.
A member of the NURTW who simply identified himself as Mr. Kamoru Babalola disclosed that commercial bus drivers on daily basis complained about the activities of the suspect.