LASTMA, driver trade blame over assault

A yet-to-be-identified commercial bus driver has accused officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority of assaulting him in the Ojodu Berger area of the state.

PUNCH Metro gathered that the agency’s officials were enforcing the traffic rule in the area when they pounced on the driver.

In a bid to escape their grip, the driver, while speaking with our correspondent, said he ran into a motor park to call his members for help.

He said, “I don’t know what I did. I was going on through the other side of the road when one of the officers started beating me and collected my phone. I begged him to tell me what my offence was but he didn’t listen. He just drove off with other officers. They even took a few buses away.”

An eyewitness, who did not want his name mentioned for security reasons, lamented the highhandedness of the agency’s officials on commercial drivers in the state.

Contacted, the Director of Public Affairs and Enlightenment, LASTMA, Taofiq Adebayo, dismissed the claim that LASTMA officers assaulted the driver.

He said, “What happened was that our men impounded four of the vehicles on the roadside. But it was a blatant lie that they collected his phone. It was in the cause of removing their vehicles from the spot that he went into the nearby garage to mobilise some of his members to attack our men.

“In the cause of trying to attack our men, his phone fell inside one of the vehicles that were impounded. The four impounded vehicles are still in our office as we speak. The phone was not stolen. The phone was inside his vehicle. They were the ones who attacked our men despite being there to correct them.

“Immediately after this incident, some of our men that were controlling traffic at Berger were attacked. They tore their uniforms. It was a police van that was passing by that rescued our men.”