Crime
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The activities of some KAI officials in Lagos State call to question whose interest they now serve
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Oct. 21, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
KICK Against Indiscipline, KAI, the law enforcement arm of the Lagos State ministry of environment, is a law unto itself. Some unscrupulous officials of KAI have abused their positions by using their uniforms to intimidate businessmen and women in order to extort money from them. Some of them even embark on unofficial raids and personally make use of the items seized from such raids. A source told Realnews that most of the KAI officials have ready fronts through whom they dispose of the seized items for cash.
Apart from illegal street raids, some KAI officials have taken their activities to the car dealers operating at Berger area along the Lagos/Ibadan expressway. In the last four months, KAI officials have laid siege on the area leading to the sealing off of all car sales premises for over one month. No official reason has been given till date for the seal off.
Feyi Anidu, one of the car dealers whose car sales premises is currently under seal, wondered why the ministry and KAI have kept sealed lips over what they had done to deserve such a raw deal. He said what they had picked up from the grapevine was that their business premises would remain sealed unless they admitted in writing that they were a nuisance in the state.
“For more than a month now, KAI has locked up this place without any notice. The first time they came here, they told us not to keep our cars outside and we complied. All of a sudden, they came back within a month and said that we should plant flowers. We accepted and started doing that. The third time they came, they locked up every gate leading into this premises without any reason up till now. We have complained to the stakeholders when we went for the stakeholders’ meeting last month but KAI has insisted that we should plant more flowers because they want the whole place to look fine and the idea is to beautify Lagos. At the meeting, they told us to admit in writing that we are a nuisance to the environment so that they will charge us but we said we cannot do that,” he said.
According to Anidu, life has been difficult for them since KAI sealed off the premises. He said that sealing off of the premises has driven away all their customers and pleaded with the state government and other relevant authorities to come to their rescue. “We are pleading with the state government to allow us work for our daily bread. Since this ugly incident, we are finding it hard to feed our families because there is no way we can move our cars in and out of the environment, not to talk of selling any of them. We cannot even pay our children’s school fees.”
All the efforts by Realnews to get the ministry to react to the allegations proved abortive. When our reporter visited the ministry, he was directed to KAI office. But KAI officials refused to react to the allegations saying that the person in-charge was on leave. However, this ugly trend is not peculiar to the car dealers on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway. In recent times, KAI officials have been accused of forceful arrest and illegal trials of traders in the state. For instance, they are accused of confiscating goods from traders operating in the state and auctioning the items as well. The auction, which normally holds at the headquarters of KAI, is allegedly handled by licensed auctioneers and most of the items are usually bought by the officials of KAI. They are also accused of arraigning poor traders, hawkers and even beggars before a mobile court which sentences them to prison terms or fines.
Realnews learnt that the exercise is in compliance with the directive of Babatunde Fashola, governor of the state, through Tunji Bello, commissioner for environment, that all the goods confiscated by the KAI magistrate’s court be auctioned six months after judgment had been delivered. Most of the confiscated items usually auctioned are electronics such as standing fans, pressing irons, CD players, television sets, clothes, shoes, phones, carpets and generating sets, among others. KAI officials are also accused of demolishing stores or kiosks and sacking street traders and hawkers in many parts of the state.
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