Police, commercial bike riders clash: Eight feared killed

Two policemen and six commercial motorbike riders were feared killed yesterday, after a team of policemen clashed with commercial bike riders at the Dopemu Area of Lagos State.

Police spokesman, Ngozi Braide, however insisted that no policeman was killed, adding that only a lone commercial rider was killed by a hit and run commercial bus at the Shasha area of the metropolis.

A police source who pleaded anonymity said that the policemen were attempting to enforce the Lagos State law restricting commercial motorcycles from operating in some areas in the metropolis when the incident occurred.

The source said: “The riders killed two policemen and wanted to kill more when the policemen in self defence, shot and killed six of them. People started as the violence continued and seemed to spread.”

He took a swipe at the riders whom he accused of being so violent against the police.

An eye witness claimed that the policemen were impounding the motorcycles at the restricted areas when some of the riders re-enforced and invited their colleagues to attack the police.

One of the motorbike riders, Adamu Mohammed said the police should sympathise with them instead of impounding their motorbike.

 Braide explained that a commercial bike rider, plying a restricted route started running at the sight of policemen.

Intent on escaping, he didn’t notice an oncoming commercial bus which knocked him down and sped away. The victim died on the spot.

She said: “The trouble started on Monday night. The police had come to the area to ask motorcyclists to leave the restricted areas. One of them saw the police, and he started to run away. In the process, he was knocked down by a hit-and-run commercial bus driver. Before he could be rushed to a nearby hospital, he died.

“They took the corpse to the home of one of the policemen, who came to arrest those on restricted routes. He was among the men on duty at that time. When they got to Dopemu, they broke into home and dropped the corpse. Residents alerted the police. The policeman came and took the corpse to mortuary. This morning, motorcyclists came again to foment trouble. They broke into the policeman’s home, looted and damaged his property.  But no policeman was killed. Meanwhile, normalcy had returned to the area.”