Lawyer Protests Gestapo Actions Of Lagos State

Johnson Odion Esezoobo Esq

Lawyer Protests Gestapo Actions Of Lagos State 

A Nigeria Senior lawyer, Johnson Odion Esezoobo, has protested against what he called ‘gestapo actions’ of the agencies of Lagos State government, especially, those saddled with ad-hoc traffic management in the State, popularly called Tasks Force.

Esezoobo, in a letter captioned ‘Stop Terrorism/Gestapo Actions By Task Force On Traffic Management In Lagos State’, addressed to State’s Attorney-General, and Commissioner for Justice, which a copy was emailed to this medium, decried arbitrary arrest of motorists by the traffic management agencies personnel.

Esezoobo who narrated ugly and harrowing experience that his wife and son went through in the hand of the Task Force personnels, likened their actions to that of kidnappers. 

The senior lawyer’s letter dated December 8, 2021, reads in parts: “The Honourable Attorney-General of Lagos StateLagos State Ministry of Justice,State Secretariat,Alausa Ikeja,Lagos State.
Dear Sir,
STOP TERRORISM/GESTAPO ACTIONS BY TASK FORCE ON TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT IN LAGOS STATE.  
On Monday the 6th of December 2021, my wife dropped me off at the Court of Appeal Lagos to attend to some matters in the Registry. She was going to Victoria Island for an assignment. My son drove the car. They were to come to pick me on their way back home. 

When I finished at the Court of Appeal, I called my wife’s phones severally to say I had finished and was waiting to be picked up. But she would not pick the calls. My initial reaction was that she must have kept the phones in her handbag and was not aware they were ringing. I then called my office Assistant who went with them. He also would not pick the calls. So, I called my son who I did not initially want to call since he was driving and might be distracted if so called. He picked the call and said some Policemen had seized the car and driven it away to an undisclosed destination. I then asked my son “Where is your mother? And where is Ben?” He answered and said, “They are here, mummy is begging one of the Policemen they left behind here to assist and tell us where they are taking the car to”. Then I asked, “Where are your mother’s phones? And he said “They are in the car, inside her bag, with all our belongings, including your files, everything is in the car. They just came as we were driving back along Muri Okunola and blocked us. They said we should all come down. One of them pointed his gun at me and said “I say come down” and mummy said I should come down. So, I came down and they took the car away…”. 

I then asked my son to go to a corner and take video clips of the mother begging the Policeman. The clips are circulated hereby with this letter. Now, what is the difference between the above act of Car Snatching and Robbery by Security agents of the State who represent the Governor of the State and when it is perpetrated by ordinary or common criminals?  

Kidnapping By The State? The Policeman my wife was said to be begging for assistance reportedly asked them to enter their operational van the team left behind after snatching the car to take them to the place the car had been taken to. My wife and office Assistant entered their van while my son refused and chose to remain there. And they drove away. Subsequently, my office Assistant called to say “They say it is Alausa behind Shoprite”. So, my son who had come to meet me at the Court of Appeal and I rented a vehicle and followed up.

While on the Third Mainland Bridge, my son called my office Assistant who informed us that they had reached the place and “Mummy has taken her bag. And they said we should go to Oshodi, that is the only place we can talk to their Oga…”. I then asked to “speak with mummy” who I advised to ensure she did not to open her bag except in the presence of the officers who took her there for proper inventory.

My wife said one of them was with her there and I asked to speak with him. The man who gave his name and identified himself as ‘Paramilitary…’ said to me “Oga what do you want?” And I said to him, “The woman with you there whom you kidnapped is my wife. That is what I want”. And the man said “kidnapped?”. I said “Yes, kidnapped”. And he gave the phone back to my wife. 

Release Of The Car And My Wife; We had just turned by the old Lagos-Ibadan Toll Gate, turning toward Seven-Up/Eleganza Complex when my wife called to say everything in the bag was okay and that the car had been released to her. This is attributable to God’s divine intervention as the operatives of the Task Force are not known to release their victims’ cars without extorting money from them under the guise of a fine at the Oshodi office to which my wife had earlier been referred. A few weeks back, a member of my Church who fell victim to this uncivilised, barbaric and gestapo action of the Task Force on traffic management in Lagos State and was referred to Oshodi paid a ‘fine’ of N30,000.00 as against N200,000.00 victims are allegedly fined, because of the intervention of the contact she reached out to. 

Essence Of This Letter ; The essence of this letter is to drawn the attention of the Honourable Attorney – General to this unfortunate incident and request the kindness of the Chief Law Officer of the State to look into it with a view to correcting the anomaly. It has happened to me, and my household so to say. It may not happen to me again. But many voiceless Nigerian citizens, and perhaps other nationals, resident in Lagos State daily suffer under this barbaric action meted out through various Task Forces in Lagos State.

As one of those who fought strenuously in my own little way for restoration of democracy and rule of law in Nigeria, I should like to stress that Nigeria is a Civil Society. If the decision of the Supreme Court in Federal Civil Service Commission v Laoye (1990) 2 NWLR (Pt. 106) 562 is anything to go be, the idea of democracy and rule of law does not admit of governance through a Task Force and the barbarism that goes with it. On the contrary, civility which is one of the hallmarks of democracy and rule of law should be the watch word. And as lawyers who should lead and guide in the practice of true democracy and the rule of law, we should not countenance a gestapo operation such as has been enumerated above. 

When Are We Going To Grow? And since the Country’s return to civil democratic rule, I have looked forward with great expectation to a Nigeria where the rule of law is truly practiced. But I have not seen any improvement as we continue to do it as of military era as illustrated by such cases as Esezoobo v LASTMA sub norm LASTMA V ESEZOOBO and Esezoobo v Federal Inland Revenue Service 
At the occurrence of this incident on Monday the 6th of December 2021, my visibly traumatised wife was afraid that we were going to be faced with a re-enactment of LASTMA V Esezoobo. I told her No! There is a bigger lesson to learn from this and a greater message to the authorities for the benefit of Nigerians. 

We have just seen from the death of a 12-year old child in the DOWEM College that if the woman who took her child away when the child complained of bulling by his colleagues had raised the alarm at that time, the young boy would not have died. Every Nigerian is a victim of any untoward action meted out on any citizen which we leave unattended to. 

Let it be emphasised that CIVILITY is one of the ideals of our Constitution as typified by provision that says ‘governmental actions shall be humane’. Let it be emphasised that CIVILITY is the underlay of the entrenched Fundamental Rights. Where is the ‘right to dignity of human’ as well as ‘right to freedom of movement’ and to ‘property’ if a citizen cannot freely go out and come in without being molested and degraded in the manner descried herein? 

Point Of Constitutional Significance; One point I consider of gest significance here is as to the classification of this obvious acts of terrorism by State Security agents comprising Police, Soldiers and Paramilitary. If the acts of the security agents in attacking citizens on the road in a gestapo manner and robbing them of their property as well as kidnapping them are accepted as constituting acts of state, it simply means that the Governor who they represent is terrorising the citizens through the State Security agents. By extension, it means the Governor has become an outlaw and a security risk as no Governor or any State functionary is permitted under the constitution to engage in such barbaric acts of terrorism.If on the other hand, the acts protested here are classified as not constituting acts of State, then there is a duty on the Honourable Attorney as Chief Law Officer of the State to stop it and not allow it to continue. 

Scandal Of The Seat Of Government; We may look at it again it; to harry a citizen out of his car, dispossess him of the car, leaving the citizen stranded, with no means of leaving the scene of the attack, in the manner hereinbefore described cannot be anything less than robbery by State Security agents who are supposed to be representing the Governor. 

Similarly, to harry the victim(s) of such robbery attack away in the operational vehicle of the State Security agents under the guise of locating where the snatched car is taken to is nothing more than kidnapping by State Security agents who are supposed to be representing the Governor. The height of the scandal is that victims are told to meet us at or taken to Alausa which is the Seat of Government.

  
The Contradiction; The contradiction in the whole situation is that under the Constitution, no Governor or State functionary is allowed to bear arms for any purpose in the process of governance. If therefore, he now bears arms through a Task Force on Traffic matters that have nothing to do with security issues, and yet goes it by a gestapo operation, terrorising road users, then there is an aberration that must be corrected. And for a Country that is battling with terrorism and banditry to countenance such a conduct by State Security agents by whatever name they are called is a contradiction. Let’s look at a possible danger, quite apart from the possibility of shooting my son on that fateful day, assuming a traumatised Mrs Esezoobo seeing a gun being pointed at the son had passed out, perhaps, because the blood pressure had shot up at the time. The common thing is that the officers would have run away from the scene and nobody would know what happened to the woman.It is against the foregoing that I write this letter to request that the Honourable Attorney General should use his good offices as the Chief Law Officer of the State to ensure this practice is stopped forthwith and that those who bear arms on behalf of the State Governor should be called to order.

I sincerely believe that in a genuine enforcement of traffic law, not only must there be clearly visible warning signs, a person appointed to manage traffic should be at the tip of the road to prevent entry by prospective violators rather than lay ambush at the middle on road users and clamp down on them on a false claim that they are driving on a one-way. That is totally unacceptable in a democratic society. What we met in the early 1980s when we came to Lagos State is totally different from what is happening today where desperation for revenue has become the driving force with the attendant danger as in the current encounter. It is this desperation that has changed simple offences which are otherwise compoundable to high level criminal offence that are now addressed by arms and prosecuted after inflicting punishment; all for purpose of raising and generating revenue. It sounds contradictory that State that is yet to recover from the End SARS saga would be involved in a gestapo operation by armed personnel in a democratic society.  

Perhaps, I should recall my encounter with the Legal Adviser of one of the Local Government Councils in Lagos State some years back on behalf of a client. He said to me, “Colleague, try and settle with them. The Chairman can just come now and say I need N5 million. And the boys will go all out to raise it. From there, the boys also help themselves…” That was sometime 1999. The Local Government agents then were not bearing arms. And in 2000, Alogba J, as he then was condemned the seizure of my car then by the Local Government Council in Esezoobo v Apapa Local Government Council. It is alarming that what condemned in 2000 is being practiced with greater zeal over two decades later through arms bearing Task Force in a democratic society. I sincerely believe that a State Governor who signs Bills passed by State House of Assembly into laws against terrorism, robbery, kidnapping and banditry or human trafficking should not be seen terrorising the citizenry in another sense, under the guise of traffic management. Such amounts to the Governor operating at a higher and more dangerous level what the Court, Alogba J as he then was, ruled out of order in the year 2000. I therefore, enjoin you as the Chief Law Officer of the State to please intervene by bringing the influence of your office to bear and stopping it forthwith. I will be glad if you do. Please accept the assurances of my highest professional and personal regards.

Johnson Odion Esezoobo.