A man is to face prosecution for assaulting an official of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authourity (LASTMA) in Lekki.
Emmanuel Ben was said to have injured, Ismaila Lukman, a LASTMA official on Sunday at the Jakande Junction in Lekki while on duty.
Lukman said he was controlling traffic manually owing to the destruction of the traffic light when Ben approached him, asking that traffic be stopped for him to cross despite a pedestrian bridge situated nearby.
The LASTMA official told him to use the bridge. Ben, Lukmqn said, proceeded to step into the carriageway in front of moving traffic causing disruption of traffic flow.
On warning him to leave the road and stop disturbing his work, Ben was said to have threatened that LASTMA officials would be chased off the road like the police.
Thereafter, Lukman said he attacked him with a weapon on his head, causing serious laceration resulting in flow of blood.
Ben was said to have been joined in the officer’s assault by two passersby currently at large.
He was arrested by the military patrol and police around the area and detained at the Ilasan Police station.
Reacting to the incident, LASTMA General Manager, Olajide Oduyoye said the Commissioner for Justice, Moyosore Onigbanjo has directed that Ben be made to face the full wrath of the law.
This, he said, was to serve as deterrence to others with similar motives.
Oduyoye in a statement by LASTMA’s Assistant Director of Public Affairs, Olumide Filade, vowed the agency will not shy away or be cowed into submission from carrying out its lawful duties “no matter the intimidation and promised that anyone caught assaulting LASTMA officers henceforth would be made to face the music under the law.”
He said that for there to be free flow of traffic in the metropolis, Lagosians must have a change of mindset to obey the traffic law.
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