Ordinarily, they should be the nemesis of every reckless and lawless motorist. They would have easily won public sentiments if their major concern on the road had been ensuring safety and free flow of traffic. If they did not arrogate to themselves, the position of ‘supreme’ prosecutor, judge and jury in supposed cases of traffic infractions, perhaps some decent and regular motorists may have ceased to view them as the worst people to run into on the Monday morning rush hour.
On a hectic day, not a few consider them the perfect symbolism of a ‘bad omen’. They are supposed to be traffic wardens and designated police personnel regulating and ensuring the smooth flow of traffic around the Government House roundabout but they have metamorphosed into an assemblage of shylock tax-masters garbed in different uniforms and superintended by the Police officials among them.
In this new ‘police formation’, you will see traffic wardens, regular policemen, members of the Imo Civil Guard, members of the Imo Orientation Agency and most times with a senior Police officer at a detached distance from the ‘Police Command’ located under a tree near the staff gate of former Modotel Hotel. It is difficult not to notice this formation immediately one turns right from Okigwe road towards the Imo Government House. On their busy day, one ob-serves a cluster of contravened and impounded cars, tricycles and even motorcycles.
When our correspondent got closer to one of the impounded vehicles, a Mercedes 190 car, the middle aged driver (Male) said he still did not understand his offence but that the traffic official who forced him to stop said he committed an offence called ‘Route Violation’. The distraught motorist said he was waiting for them to attend to his case.
More than 50 vehicles and tricycles are imponded on a daily basis under that tree but not one of the cases is charged to court, indicating that the entire purpose of the ‘Police command under the tree’ is to make money by exploiting motorists. The rather vexatious aspect of this fraud is the fact that these uniformed men go as far as running after vehicles to impound them, only to free them again after money had changed hands. In some cases, there is a very thin line between their operations and that of touts.
In a bid to get one vehicle stopped and impounded for a fee, these traffic officers could stall a long line of traffic showing that their major delight is not the free flow of traffic but in contravening motorists.
The activities of these traffic racketeers should be an embarassment to the State Police Headquarters and an eyesore to the Government House vicinity.
The leadership of the Imo State Police headquarters cannot feign ignorance of the activities of these shylock traffic officials as their ‘extortion’ point is located right at the entry and exit roundabout to the Government House, Police Headquarters and the Directorate of State Services.
With the level of ‘buying and selling’ that goes on at the ‘police command under the tree’, in the full glare of the public, one cannot but suspect that these strange specimens of the Nigerian police, are accountable to some top brass in the state police headquarters which perhaps is why they are seemingly shielded. Perhaps, the deafening silence of the authorities following the massive invasion of the Owerri metropolis by gangs of touts and brigands in the guise of revenue collectors may have quickened the ‘police command under the tree’ to deploy more desperate measures, contravening and exploiting motorists with reckless abandon yet not prosecuting any.
The Imo State Police Commissioner must sit up and take notice of several acts of impunity and lawlessness going on right under his nose starting from the ‘Police command under the tree’. It will not be too much to ask for the disbandment of all the officials – police and paramilitary – presently supervising traffic control at the Government House roundabout.
They are all compromised. A new team should be deployed with a new brief and stricter mandate to discharge their duties with a service consciousness and not the now prevalent ‘buying and selling’ mentality that has progressively alienated the Police from the people they claim to serve and protect.
