Taraba’s checkpoints of ‘No Mercy’

Wielding his rifle with his left hand high up above his shoulder, the police corporal rolled a nails-driven plank that formed a major barricade at the check-point towards the approaching vehicle. Apparently a regular commuter along the Jalingo, Wukari Road the driver indulgingly wound down his side glass and stretched out his hand with a […]

Wielding his rifle with his left hand high up above his shoulder, the police corporal rolled a nails-driven plank that formed a major barricade at the check-point towards the approaching vehicle. Apparently a regular commuter along the Jalingo, Wukari Road the driver indulgingly wound down his side glass and stretched out his hand with a tattered N200 currency note. “Drop it and carry go”, the corporal said as he rolled back the plank to allow the driver the ‘right of passage.’
There was a touch of comedy as the driver released the currency and meandered past the logs that formed the barricade at the checkpoint. A breeze from nowhere swirled up the N200 note in the air leading to a dramatic chase after it by the corporal who was joined by other colleagues that were seated under a makeshift tent by the roadside.
Eventually, one of them triumphantly matched the currency with his right foot and with a broad smile on his face; he stooped and shoved the ‘catch’ inside his pockets. A handful of thers who watched the dramatic chase from their patrol vehicle parked at the opposite side of the road giggled in excitement at the victory.
Moments later a lorry conveying dozens of passengers who looked like destitute approached the checkpoint. It was not clear what the lorry owner meant to illustrate with the inscription “sorry” placed above the name plate both in front and at the back of the truck.
But if he intended the “sorry” inscription to serve as a euphemism to elicit sympathy from the policemen over the plight of his passengers, who turned out to be displaced persons fleeing from the crisis areas in Taraba, he was dead wrong! As he pulled the rickety lorry towards the rowdy checkpoint, the rifle wielding corporal, once again, rolled his nails driven plank to block the road.
This time around he asked the driver to clear off and park ‘properly’ by the side where another cop-a sergeant was signaled to take charge.
Standing from a vantage position close to the roundabout located at the sleepy village of Dan-Anacha; one of the places I had visited to do coverage on the Taraba crisis, I watched with bemusement as the police sergeant interrogated the driver of the truck.
His attempt to persuade the Sergeant that the occupants of his vehicle were victims of crises who were fleeing the troubled areas for safety appeared to have fallen on deaf ears as the driver was eventually asked to go and see their team leader-an inspector- who was seated inside their patrol vehicle.
It was clear that the driver’s efforts at persuading the ‘oga’ to reason that the passengers inside the lorry were helpless victims of crisis fell on deaf ears. It was after he went back to the lorry and put heads together with some of the passengers that he eventually had a handshake with the dark goggled Police Inspector who requested the corporal with the nails driven plant to allow them proceed.
Not even the ‘sorry sight’ of the displaced persons crammed in the vehicle; among them women and children, was able to prevent the policemen at the checkpoint from their prodigious proclivity to extort.
If you have visited the Dan-Anacha roadblock, you have visited all similar ones that now dot the routes connecting the rural areas of Taraba State and their stories are the same. From Wukari; the epicenter of the lingering crisis to Ibi and to Donga there are over twenty of such roadblocks that were said to have been prompted in the wake of the farmers/herders crises in Taraba State.
Interestingly some of the check points are manned by touts who claim they are detailed by the council authorities to collect revenue from the commuters.
Although commercial vehicle/motorcycle operators and other commuters are not spared the extortionist tendencies of policemen at the checkpoints those mostly at the receiving end are the hundreds of displaced persons that are fleeing the troubled areas in search of sanctuary.
At one of the checkpoints located along the Wukari, Donga road this reporter sighted a horde of displaced persons who were stranded following the breakdown of the truck conveying them.
Even as the driver struggled to rectify the mechanical fault, a group of boys manning the checkpoint insisted that the passengers must part with some money before they proceed. It took the intervention of my guide (a man of Jukun extraction) who engaged in a fierce argument with them before they eventually allowed the truck to proceed.
Some of the fleeing displaced persons who spoke with this reporter recounted their ordeals in the hands of Policemen and touts at the checkpoint. “This is what we go through on daily basis as we endeavor to travel along these routes in search of safety from the crises areas”, said Doose, a middle aged woman who was travelling in a truck along Mutum-Biu, Wukari road.
“At every checkpoint the policemen and touts as the case may be would ask us to give them money before they allow us to proceed on the pretext that the property we are conveying are suspected ‘exhibits’; they don’t even check the items to ascertain the content all they are after is to exploit our situation”, Doose said.
At Mutum Biu, the headquarters of Gassol local government area, this reporter encountered another set of fleeing displaced persons at a checkpoint who were subjected to the same treatment. “We have been kept here for over three hours because we don’t have the kind of money the police are demanding from us”, said Moses Gbande who was travelling with his two wives and over ten children and other family members.
Gbande said: “We are attacked and chased away from our homes and farms by marauding herdsmen and in our search for safety we are confronted by countless checkpoints where the security personnel exploit our situation to their advantage.”
A commercial bus driver who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the policemen were taking undue advantage of the crisis in Taraba to exploit both the displaced persons and other commercial vehicle owners plying the routes in the state.
“Every day we pass through these checkpoints we must earmark some money with which we bribe the policemen on patrol before we are allowed to pass; if you don’t cooperate with them they just keep you stranded at the checkpoint for hours until you play ball”, said the bus driver. Even the commercial motorcycles plying the routes are not spared as they are made to stop at the checkpoints and trek past with their passengers before they are allowed to proceed after parting with some notes.
At the RCM Primary School Zaki Biam where hundreds of the displaced people were camped, it was the same tale from some of them who spoke with Sunday Trust on their experiences on the road.
“It took me and my family almost a week to travel from our village in Bali local government area to this place”, said Mama Mbawuese who was camping in one of the classrooms with his fleeing family members. “We spent almost N10,000 bribing policemen at the various checkpoints on our way before eventually getting to this place”, she said.
Like Mama Mbawuese several other displaced persons now taking refuge at the RCM Primary School Zaki Biam, a border town between Taraba and Benue State-have tales that are stretched through the mist and dust of remembered agonies, excitements and angers in their flight from the crisis ridden areas of Taraba state in search of sanctuary. Their woes were aggravated by the extortionist activities of the policemen and other operatives manning the many checkpoints that dot the routes in the state.   
Taraba State Police Commissioner Kalafite H. Adeyemi acknowledged the presence of the checkpoints in the state but told Sunday Trust in an interview that the duty of the policemen at the checkpoints was strictly to maintain law and order and ensure the safety of both the displaced persons and other commuters.