Reckless driving: Police officer attacks woman in Lagos

A police officer attached to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), SUCO Road, Abattoir, Agege, Lagos State, on Sunday, attacked a housewife, Mrs. Abimbola Oriade, leaving her with injury.
After the beating, he was shielded by his colleagues who later begged the woman to “please forgive and forget”.
The officer felt offended that the woman and other passengers in a commercial bus challenged the reckless way an RRS officer drove on the road.
Mrs. Oriade said: “We would have been killed, but for the intervention of God. When we complained at their office, they attacked me. I was in a commercial bus, heading to Agege Pen Cinema, when the RRS van suddenly made an illegal U-turn in front of our bus. The RSS driver stepped on his brake, reversed and rammed into our bus, causing our heads to knock against one another and some against the body of the bus.
“The RRS van just took off without checking to see if we were okay. The driver of our bus pursued him. When the driver caught up with him in the traffic, he made another illegal U-turn again and ran into their base on SUCO Road, Abattoir. A policeman at the gate, Monday Okon, refused to allow our bus to follow him into the base.
“We all alighted from the bus and stood in front of the RRS office. We were explaining the near-tragic accident to the officer at the gate, when one of the officers in mufti just came and pounced on me. He started beating me and a male passenger. After slapping and hitting us repeatedly, he said that we should go and do our worst. I made a statement at the Abattoir Police Station, Agege. The officer that took my statement was Gloria Ebororo.
“The other policemen, rather than stop him or fetch him out, started begging me. They started begging after my husband came. They said I and my husband should forgive the officer that assaulted me and allow the matter to die. But I don’t want the matter to die. He slapped and punched me like he wanted to kill me.”
One of the passengers told Freedom Online that the commercial bus was going to Agege Pen Cinema when a lone RSS vehicle marked NPF 408 D made an illegal U-turn in front of the commercial bus, reversed into bus and caused bodily harm to the passengers.
The officers at the gate refused to speak with reporters after the incident.