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Journalist Brutalised and Detained by
Paramilitary Officials
On 4 March 2005, Ayodele Ale, a reporter with The Saturday Punch
newspaper, one of the titles of The Punch newspapers, a Nigerian
national daily was severely beaten and detained by officials of Kick
Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade, the Lagos State paramilitary agency
responsible for ensuring compliance with environmental and other
miscellaneous rules in Lagos State.
Following public outcry over
allegations of arbitrary arrests, detention and extortion of money from
innocent citizens leveled against the KAI officials, Mr. Ale went to Sabo
in the Yaba area of Lagos to investigate the matter. Citizens had been
protesting that they are usually falsely accused by the KAI officials of
walking across the road instead of using the pedestrian bridge provided.
They said they were arrested, detained and forced to pay N500 on the spot
to secure their immediate release or are taken to “a sleazy cell located
at No. 28 Benson Street in Akerele area of Surulere in Lagos” where they
are made to pay N1,000 failing to pay, they are taken to ‘court’ where
they risk paying more.
While taking photographs of the scene from
a seemingly safe location, he was grabbed from behind by a KAI official in
Mufti and immediately surrounded by six others: some in mufti and others
in uniform. When he enquired about their identity, he was told: “When you
get to the court, you will know”. Mr. Ale identified himself as a reporter
and asked to see the head of the KAI team but was ignored. They seized him
and dragged him to a waiting van in which twelve other victims were kept.
They were later driven to KAI’s overcrowded detention centre in Akerele.
At the detention centre, his
captors went for his camera with one of them identified as Lefo,
threatening to break it. There was an argument during which time an
unidentified man emerged from the Magistrate’s Chambers. The journalists
tried to explain his ordeal to him but the man ordered Lefo and other KAI
officials to “take care of him” where upon they descended on him, “hitting
him hard with clubs” and other weapons.
They forced him into a small cell that
contained about 50 other inmates some of whom recounted to him their
ordeals in the hands of the KAI officials.
Mr. Ale contacted his editor to
report that he had fallen victim of KAI officials. Several hours later,
Lefo came asking for him and handed him a mobile phone to speak with
someone who identified himself as Lukman.
Lukman told him: “We are sorry about what
happened. I was told they saw you trying to take some pictures around
them, and they felt you ought to have taken permission from them as law
enforcement agents.” After further discussions with Lukman, Mr. Ale was
thereafter set free.
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