Policemen on duty along the Abuja-Kaduna highway allegedly killed a commercial driver after he refused to give them N2,000 bribe, NAN quoted a witness as saying. The yet-to-be-identified driver was shot by a policeman in the early hours of Friday while on his way to Kaduna state.
TheCable had reported how some drivers blocked the road to protest the killing. The highway has been locked down for hours, with most of the drivers refusing to give way. NAN quoted the witness as saying one of the policemen stationed along the road shot the driver after he declined the request for a bribe.
Another witness identified the late driver’s car as Peugeot J5. He was said to be conveying rice. The drivers insisted they would not give way nor remove the barricades until the Kaduna state governor and the state commissioner of police address them.
Yakubu Sabo, spokesman of the state police command, is yet to respond to TheCable’s inquiry on the matter. ‘
‘BRIBERY ALLEGATION AGAINST THE POLICE’
The extrajudicial killing comes amid the allegations of corruption and misconduct levelled against the police. In March, a public survey released by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) adjudged the police as the most corrupt institution in Nigeria. Of the five major public institutions surveyed, the police had emerged as the most corrupt, with officials of the power sector identified as the second most corrupt in the country.
“A bribe is paid in 54 percent of interactions with the police. In fact, there is a 63% probability that an average Nigerian would be asked to pay a bribe each time he or she interacted with the police.
That is almost two out of three,” Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP deputy director, had said in the report.
