Joint security operatives, including the Nigeria Customs Service and the Nigerian Army, set up checkpoints along the Badagry-Seme Expressway and allegedly brutalized two Badagry residents suspected of being informants to journalists exposing smuggling activities on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway.
The incident occurred at about 2pm on Sunday December 1, 2024 at Oloko, along Badagry-Seme expressway, Lagos State.
Taofeek Olatunbosun and Rafiu Abdelmalik, both transporters, were reportedly brutalized by security operatives at the checkpoint when they tried to capture video evidence for their customers who wanted to verify their location.
According to Olatunbosun, “We were on our way to Apa, when the motorcycle that took us stopped in a fuel station to get petrol. The customer I was supposed to deliver some goods to was disturbing me to know my actual location, I then told my boy to make a video of our location, which I intended to forward to my customer.
“Before I knew what was happening someone approached him and was trying to take his phone, which also got the attention of the security operatives at the point. By the time they intervened they said we are the once making videos for journalists that are exposing smuggling activities on the road.
“Then they took us inside a place close the the checkpoints where they called their team leader, Officer Adamu Zakari, a soldier, by the time he came he identified me and said he knows my brother and that he will kill him the day the sees him, despite that he knows my brother he didn’t still believe me, he then asked the officers why they didn’t kill us and throw us inside the water, then they started beating us,” Olatunbosun narrated.
Abdulmalik added, “I was only making video according on the instructions of my boss, when is saw one of the smugglers, a worker with the security operatives at the point beside me, he gave me a slap and was dragging my phone with me, he dragged us to the security operatives who took us to a place close to their checkpoint where they tortured us that we need to confess the journalists we want to send the video to.
“When the people in the area saw that the beating was too much, they called the police, it was the police that rescued us from them, if not they would have killed us,” he said.
It was gathered that the same officers mounting the checkpoint at Oloko had called some journalists in Badagry to warn them not to report smuggling activities in Badagry.
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