A major fracas broke out amongst law enforcement agencies in Abuja on Wednesday, after an attempt to seal a Road Safety office went awry.
Violence broke out after soldiers and policemen attached to Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) tried to serve the Road Safety office in Wuze Zone 7 a violation notice.
Police officers and soldiers attached to the AEBP officials allegedly assaulted a female Road Safety marshal, in the process leading to confrontation.
AEPB task force members denied assaulting the Road Safety personnel, saying they were resisted from sealing the Road Safety office as ordered by a magistrate’s court.
During the fight, a soldier was reportedly wounded and a civilian staff of AEPB was “taken hostage” by the Road Safety marshals.
In turn, soldiers and police officers who were part of the AEPB team seized a Road Safety officer.
A female legal officer at AEPB, Mrs Esther Isaac, who led the team to enforce the court order against FRSC, sustained injuries from what appeared to be an impact of broken windscreen on her body.
The disagreement resulted in a temporary stalemate over the release of the “hostages”, as neither party was initially willing to free the persons in their respective custody first.
The Road Safety demanded that its personnel must be released first while soldiers stood their grounds that Road Safety should first release the seized civilian AEPB staff, whom they escorted to serve the notice.
The matter was later resolved around 12:00 noon.
Police and Nigerian Army declined comments about the violence, saying AEPB was the appropriate agency to direct enquiries to.
A chain of events
Findings revealed that the crisis has been brewing since mid-February when environmental experts inspected FRSC Sector Command Headquarters in Wuse Zone 7, adjacent NAFDAC Headquarters, and discovered that the facility did not conform with extant environmental regulations.
Subsequently, FRSC was informed of its violations through a notice of abatement served on it on February 16. FRSC acknowledged receipt of the abatement notice on the same day.
After FRSC allegedly failed to comply with the demands of AEPB, the environmental protection office sued for the enforcement of the abatement notice.
The suit was filed at the Chief Magistrate’s Court, Wuse Zone 2, before Mr Ibrahim Jobbo, a magistrate.
Specifically, FRSC was accused of discharging sewage into an open space, offensive odour, dumping refuse on the ground, burning of waste, blockage of drainage, failure to fumigate, amongst other gruesome violations of environmental regulations.
On February 26, Jobbo ordered that the FRSC office be temporarily shut with immediate effect, saying the agency had failed to appear before the court despite several summons.
“It was the court order that we came to enforce today when they attacked us,” Isaac said.
Ms. Isaac said she arrived at FRSC office with her colleagues and a police officer around 10:00 a.m. Wednesday. After identifying themselves appropriately and informing FRSC officers on duty of their mission, they were told to go ahead and carry out their enforcement.
“The FRSC officers started moving their official vehicles out of the compound, saying that we may seal the office after all their vehicles have been moved out,” Ms. Isaac said.
“But after all the vehicles had been moved out with only an unofficial black car left in the compound, we saw another two vehicles trying to drive in.”
She said that the two vehicles being driven in were those of senior FRSC officers, but when she moved to tell them that they were about to seal the premises, she was met with violence.
“One of the officers that I could only remember her name as ‘Martha’ started slapping me saying I pushed their boss,” she said. “Then other Road Safety officers joined in and they started pummeling me from all sides.”
During the violence, she admitted hitting a female officer with one of the heavy-duty chains she was holding, but emphasised it was “not intentional.”
Some of Ms. Isaac’s colleagues called in a reinforcement from the police and the Nigerian Army, and the violence intensified as soon as the team arrived.
Isaac said she may pursue assault charges against FRSC.
‘You can’t seal a government office’
FRSC said it had a court case with AEPB bordering on violations of environmental regulations, but said its premises should not have been sealed.
“What happened was that they actually came that they wanted to seal the place up because we didn’t appear in one summon,” Bisi Kazeem, a spokesperson for the FRSC, said Wednesday afternoon. “But our lawyer was there to tell us we could go another time because we didn’t get a summon on time.”
Mr. Kazeem said sealing a building that is being occupied by a government agency could be problematic.
“Trying to forcefully seal off an office of government, there was a sort of resistance,” he said, but added that the matter is “being resolved.”
Kazeem said all allegations of brutality on all sides would be investigated.
AEPB, however, disagreed with the Road Safety spokesperson, saying no federal agency is above the law.
PT
