Ten persons were arrested for attacking the officers of Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Enforcement Agency (Taskforce) during an enforcement of the State’s traffic laws on Tuesday.
The suspects were picked up within the commotion that broke call at Ojodu and Obanikoro during the enforcement administered by the Taskforce in several areas in Lagos.
No fewer than 96 commercial motorcycles, popularly referred to as Okada, operating on highways and in other restricted routes within the metropolis, were impounded within the Tuesday operation.
Also, four motorists driving against the traffic were arrested by the Anti-One Way team of the Taskforce.
It was gathered that some hoodlums teamed up with Okada riders around Ojodu Grammar School to resist the move by the Taskforce to require away motorcycles seized during the enforcement.
As the hoodlums, armed with iron rods and broken bottles, approached the Taskforce operatives, the policemen, led by the Taskforce chairman, Shola Jejeloye, a Superintendent of Police (SP), repelled the attack, and dispersed the mobsters.
Passersby and residents scampered for safety, because the Taskforce operatives chased the hoodlums. Five suspects were arrested.
There was tension within the area for several minutes, before normalcy returned. The Taskforce officers remained within the area for hours during a bid to make sure there was no reprisal on residents.
Also at Obanikoro, Okada riders, on sighting the enforcement team, pelted the Taskforce officers with stones. The policemen arrested four persons who took part within the attack. One person was arrested in Ojota.
Jejeloye said the Taskforce wouldn’t relent in its activities to revive sanity back on the roads. He warned commercial motorcycles illegally operating on restricted routes to prevent defying the Government’s restriction order, advising them to limit their activities to roads they’re permitted to work .
He said: “We aren’t surprised about the attack on us by some hoodlums in Obanikoro and Ojodu for completing the mandate given to the present team by the Lagos government . But, this may never deter us from extending the enforcement to other areas of the States where notorious road users and Okada riders have constituted nuisance.
“We aren’t after the commercial motorcycles operating in areas where their activities are permitted; we are after those breaking the restriction order and motorists who flout the State’s traffic laws. this is often not the primary time our men would be attacked, but we’ll not relent in completing the enforcement. Ten of these who attacked us were arrested and that they are going to be duly charged.”
The Taskforce chairman maintained that the agency team would work around the clock during Yuletide to hold out the enforcement, warning offenders to desist from flouting the State’s traffic laws.
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