Taskforce intercepts 123 men from Jigawa

The Lagos State Environment Sanitation and Special Offenses Taskforce yesterday intercepted a truck with 48 motorcycles and 123 men coming from Jigawa State. The Cable reports that Yinka Egbeyemi, the chairman of the task force, said the truck was seized following a tip-off by members of the public who raised security concerns about the manner […]

The Lagos State Environment Sanitation and Special Offenses Taskforce yesterday intercepted a truck with 48 motorcycles and 123 men coming from Jigawa State.

The Cable reports that Yinka Egbeyemi, the chairman of the task force, said the truck was seized following a tip-off by members of the public who raised security concerns about the manner with which its occupants conducted themselves.

There is yet no proof that they were preparing to commit any crime and this may lead to accusation of ethnic profiling, The Cable added.

He said after the interception, the truck and its occupants were moved to the office of the task force in Oshodi for interrogation.

After his team got a security alert from the public, he said, they seized the truck and its occupants at Agege area of Lagos.

“While my team was on the operation, we got information from the public that some people had entered Lagos in a trailer loaded with over 300 people. We swiftly responded to the alert and trailed the truck from the Berger area to Agege. We eventually intercepted the truck which carried no few than 123 men and 48 motorcycles,” he said.

“We have interrogated most of the truck’s occupants, from the information we gathered, some of them said they were coming from Jigawa State, with 48 of them claiming to own the seized motorcycles. The rest of them said they came to Lagos in search of greener pasture.”

Egbeyemi said the Lagos police command had directed that a fact-finding panel be constituted to profile the detained occupants of the truck, but he added that nothing incriminating was found on them apart from the motorcycles.

One of the detained occupants, Shuaibu Haruna, said he left Jigawa to work in Lagos with his motorcycle. He claimed to have a wife and a son but said he needed to double his income to cater for his family.

Haruna said he intended to stay in Isolo area to which he had already paid N7,000 as accommodation fee.

Another occupant, Mohammed Ibrahim, said he left his base in the northern part of the country to keep himself busy after finishing his farm work.

He said he was going to Badagry to join his brother.