at my plight. Bello’s opening words in response to my complaint were: “Bayo … Bayo … ” in reference to the Task Force’s Chairman, then Superintendent Bayo Sulaiman, in tones indicative of the fact of my complaint being a part of the legion against the outfit under the leadership of Sulaiman. Bello had assured me that, apart from interceding in my situation, he would also see to my damaged laptop and whatever other injuries done me. I was also able to reach other persons, who turned out to be great intercessors on my behalf. I only went into the details of Bello’s role in the episode to affirm the veracity of my tale, knowing that the incumbent Executive Chairman/Vice Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) would surely be disinclined to deny that he featured prominently in seeking to remedy the tragic event.
As dusk settled, the Taskforce was ready to depart Apapa for its Headquarters at the Lagos State Government Secretariat in Alausa, Ikeja, the state capital. Brazenly breaking one of the Taskforce’s then cardinal briefs to nail drivers going against traffic, the ‘Black Maria’ was driven against traffic to join the other operational vehicles and form a small convoy. The team made its first stop across the road from Apapa Divisional Headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to discharge and handover a number of the other prisoners who had been in the truck with me. After this, the convoy made its second and final brief stop at Ijora to conduct whatever business I could not deduce in the pervasive darkness. Thence, we raced all the way to Alausa.
At the Taskforce Headquarters, alighting from the ‘Black Maria’, alongside the other detainees, I saw the Chairman in the midst of other officials, similarly clad in mufti like he was. Obviously, my calls had had had great effect because Sulaiman, without preamble, enquired who was the journalist among us, and I promptly responded that I was. Then he went into a long lecture on how he expected me to execute my brief as a journalist, particularly as it relates to the coverage of security operatives. Initially, I was overwhelmed by his drawn-out monologue, bearing all with equanimity. However, after a while, I was bored stiff and had responded that I was a well-trained journalist with years of active practical experience, whose academic project, fortuitously, had been on public relations in the Nigeria Police. I further explained that the earliest beats assigned me in my journalism practice had been covering the Police, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and Defence, which left me with pleasant memories of the services personnel I encountered years after. With his ready and constant smiles, thereafter, Sulaiman and I had a healthy debate the short time I spent at the Taskforce Headquarters before being set free. I had put it to Sulaiman that the men of the Taskforce who attacked me were a sadistic lot very far removed from the uniformed lot that my profession had brought me in contact with in the past. With the stout defence, the Taskforce Chairman put up for his men, I couldn’t help but wonder that sadism was a common feature of the lot; a toothpaste smile eerily merely masking that of the leadership.
Ajayi had held on to my phone, and, when Sulaiman gave the instruction for my release, I raised the matter of having the handset returned to me. After consultations among themselves, the Taskforce top brass decided that copies of the recordings needed to be made for their files. I readily obliged them. Unknown to me, however, they were men bereft of integrity and honour. I later discovered that under the guise of duplicating the recordings that captured the operatives in compromising positions in Apapa, the Taskforce leadership had had all the audio and video recordings, as well as photographs on my phone wilfully wiped off.
I must note that, Sulaiman had insisted that I exchanged phone numbers with him and Ajayi, as gestures of reconciliation and good faith going on. Ajayi’s number is 0803 427 7806, and Sulaiman’s 0803 318 3477. I daresay state that I have had no cause to speak to either of them; not when the one who was on ground at the scene failed woefully to call his men to order, while the overall boss could barely conceal his glee at the plight of the innocent victim of his men.
Despite my angst about the security and safety of leaving my car parked overnight in the streets of Surulere, I was too worn out by the drudgery the Taskforce had put me through to bother going to pick the vehicle that night. I simply managed to convey my battered body straight home. I wasted little time getting to bed soon after my dinner and swallowing painkillers. I slept fitfully, interspersed by nightmares. I downed more analgesics after my breakfast before heading out to where my car was parked. Thankfully, I met the car intact. I went on to kickstart my day.
I did not take up the offer of Tunji Bello to see him over my case with the Taskforce that day. And not till date. Back then, I had felt little inclination to further bother Bello with my entanglement with a body whose second name has for long been infamy; a veritable killer squad. I simply counted my losses, including my wrecked laptop and deleted phone files, as I perceived them then. I felt compelled to swallow my physical and psychological pains as well.
There was, however, a life-changing loss that soon began to manifest. The beating from the Lagos State Taskforce had terribly damaged and compromised my spine, reducing me to perennial back pain and near-endless consumption of painkillers and application of embrocations, following the incident. As the years went by, my condition became exacerbated, until I was referred to NOHIL, where series of X-rays, CT scans and MRIs have helped in diagnosing me as being afflicted by degenerative lumbar spine disease with paraplegia. I have been on the NOHIL waiting list for corrective surgery since 2025. We are in May 2026, and I was fervently praying to be given a definitive date for the procedure at my next Spine Clinic appointment on May 11, 2026. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep the appointment due to logistics issues. I have been given a July 6, 2026, fresh date. I pray that the surgery is effected successfully effected soon enough, so that I’m rescued from my bedridden and wheelchair-bound state. May each and all of the persons whose actions and inactions put me in this insufferable condition all be served their comeuppance.
In a landmark March 2026 ruling (Suit FHC/WR/CS/87/2025), the Federal High Court in Warri, Delta State, South-South Nigeria, affirmed that recording police in public is a constitutional right. Going ahead to amplify the court ruling in April 2026, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Tijani Fatai, has explicitly stated that members of the public are permitted to film or record police officers while they are on duty. Alas, my debilitating health condition makes it already too late for me to celebrate these recent orders.
• Obiajulu Agu is a journalist and the Administrator of ‘MARITIME MATTERS’
About Post Author
