Philemon Isa, a corps member in Plateau State, has recounted how Inspector John Taka, a police officer who stays around the Jos office of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), assaulted him for speaking up for a tricycle driver whom the same officer had attacked.

Isa told FIJ that his only crime was asking Taka why he was being violent with the tricycle driver despite people pleading with him to stop.

“The rider said he was fasting and didn’t have any strength, but the officer would not stop hitting him. While people were pleading, I asked him, ‘Why are you violent?’” Isa told FIJ.

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According to Isa, the show of force started when a passenger in the tricycle asked the rider to park just before the No-Parking zone close to the CBN’s Jos office.

He said that once the driver stopped, Inspector Taka charged at them and began to hit the tricycle with his gun. The policeman would not even listen to them.

Isa said the passenger who asked the tricycle driver to stop told the officer that he knew his boss and frequently visited him, but this did not stop Taka from assaulting the tricyclist.

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When Taka would not stop assaulting the tricycle driver, the passengers started pleading with him to stop hitting the man, but he refused.

Isa’s glasses after Taka assaulted him

“Taka seized the tricycle’s key and kept hitting the rider. At that point, I asked him why he was violent. He reached out for my glasses. I brought out my corps member identity card after he hit me, but he didn’t stop,” Isa said.

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“I got angry because he kept hitting the guy like a criminal. His superior knew the passenger and begged him, but he still shouted at the man. Now, I have lost a lens from my medicated glasses. I didn’t even realise it until I had returned to my primary place of assignment.”

When FIJ called Alfred Alabo, the Plateau State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), he refused to comment.

“I don’t know you. I am sorry,” he said, despite our reporter identifying himself as a journalist.
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