Three officers of the traffic service arm of the Nigeria Police Force ganged up to strip and beat up a commercial tricyclist in the Idi Odo, Challenge area of Ibadan, Oyo State.
Oluwaseun Akinola, a broadcast journalist with Splash FM, posted a clip showing traffic wardens physically abusing the tricyclist.
In the video, the unclad tricyclist, who had been badly beaten by the three traffic officers locally referred to as yellow fever, kept begging them to stop beating him, but one of them responded by stepping on the rider’s neck as he lay on the muddy floor.
One of the bystanders was faulting the commercial rider for not asking people to beg the officers on his behalf.
In another video Akinola shared with FIJ, the tricycle driver explained that he was stopped for no particular reason. Before he could ask questions, the three officers had ganged up to beat him before they stripped him naked.
“I carried a passenger here in front of this UBA Bank. They (referring to the traffic officers) asked me to park, and as I was about to do so, they began to drag my steering with me. They asked me if I wanted to disobey. They then punched my face and my mouth. The three of them began to beat me,” the tricyclist cried as he narrated his ordeal.
“They took my maruwa (tricycle) there and deflated my tyres. I then went to pump the tyres back, and I wanted to go and take the maruwa back. In the process, the three of them began dragging it with me. They then gathered up on me again and resumed beating me. That was how they beat me into the mud.”
When asked if he had disobeyed the traffic light at Idi Odo, “I didn’t disobey the traffic light,” he responded. “The light is not working. The three of them beat me up this way. My legs hurt. I can’t even move one of my legs. They have taken my maruwa away,” he added.
The tricyclist in the video was just one of the many victims of the brutality that commuters plying the Molete-Challenge route face at the hands of the traffic wardens.
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