By Favour Nnabugwu

Officials of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB, are more commonly known for running after street hawkers, seizing their wares and sometimes arresting them. But they recently upped the ante by harassing one hapless fellow and vandalising his car. The middle aged man had stopped briefly to answer a phone call along the ever- busy Wuse under bridge.

A suspected offender being forcefully arrested by policemen attached to a task force team.

Vanguard Metro, VM, which witnessed the incident, saw a man in mufti approach the motorist. A heated argument soon ensued between both men. A police man attached to the AEPB soon joined the fray. At this point the shouting match had degenerated into a shoving contest that attracted the attention of  passersby.

The driver of the car in question, who identified himself as Mr Emmanuel Oluwagbamila, quickly jumped out of the car with his key in his hands  when the first official tried to force his way into the vehicle. And for refusing to re-enter the car and follow them to their office, the men in mufti proceeded to demobilise the car.

Onlookers had tried to explain to the  AEPB officials that the man did not stop to pick passengers but was  only receiving a call.
Narrating his experience to VM Oluwagbamila said: “ I was driving  when a call came in.  l didn’t pick the call but a second  call also came from somebody  I am working for who needed to pass an urgent information to me.

Hence, l stopped at the shoulder of the road under the bridge to quickly receive the call and move on”.
He continued: “I was about driving away when a hefty young man in mufti without any identification tag held my car door and tried  to force  it open. I was indeed afraid because l didn’t know who he was until he beckoned to another man from an 18-seater bus with the inscription Society Against Prostitution and Child Labour in Nigeria, SAP CLN.”

According to him: “About six other men alighted from the bus and came to where I parked and told  me to get into my car and drive with them to their headquarters. They kept saying ‘we are going to our headquarters’.  “I told them l will not follow them anywhere because l didn’t know who they were.

An AEPB patrol vehicle

“The next thing they did was to open the bonnet of my car and removed the battery. They also pulled out some cables from the engine. The only one among them that had an identification tag pinned under the T-shirt he wore refused to bring it out”.

When the men were approached to identify themselves, one of them flashed an identification card clipped to his trouser with his T-shirt covering it.  He claimed he was a staff of AEPB.

Mr Joe Ukairo, AEPB’s Public Relations Officer, in a telephone interview with VM condemned the approach of the officials but claimed that their officers are only forced to rudely whenever they meet with resistance from their culprits. According to him: “If that is actually what they did it,  that is not good enough”.

Explaining the relationship between SAP-CLN and AEPB, Ukairo said the board has a partnership with SAP-CLN, hence they often use SAP-CLN buses to operate most of the time.

“We do not harass motorists that just stop to make phone call,  whose car doors are securely locked up  and he do not pick or drop any passengers. We only clamp down on motorists that park or stop to pick or drop passengers,” he explained.

He however advised Mr Oluwagbamila to go to their office in Area 3 or the one behind the War College to retrieve his car battery and cables.