‘Criminals posing as policemen to steal our motorcycles’

Commercial motorcyclists who operate in Kubwa and environs in the FCT have said the seizure of motorcycles by policemen has paved way for hoodlums to criminally hijack the act. The motorcyclists said they have been faced with the challenge of losing their motorcycles to both genuine and fake policemen since the police began impounding their […]

Commercial motorcyclists who operate in Kubwa and environs in the FCT have said the seizure of motorcycles by policemen has paved way for hoodlums to criminally hijack the act.

The motorcyclists said they have been faced with the challenge of losing their motorcycles to both genuine and fake policemen since the police began impounding their motorcycles.

The police impound motorcycles that parked against traffic order, or those that crossed into the Abuja-Zuba highway around the area for road violation, and released the motorcycles to the owners after payment of fine.

The motorcyclists that spoke with our reporter alleged that they were made to pay about N5,000 before their motorcycles were released to them, or risked being taken to the police station where much money would be demanded.

“The worse are the ones that disguise as policemen with arms in their possession, who if they seized our motorcycles one cannot trace them to any location,” a motorcyclist, Kabiru Abdullahi, said.

He said his motorcycle was seized from him by two men that he mistook to be plainclothes policemen under a pedestrian bridge around the area. “They told me to meet them at Kubwa police station, but that was the end of the story as I could not locate them at the station,” he said.

Responding, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Kubwa, CSP Ayobami Surajudeen, said as a result of rising cases of motorcycle theft because of the policy, the division had resolved to halt the operation of seizing motorcycles from the defaulters for a while, starting from last week.