He claimed that there had been numerous reports to the police of Carter Bridge motorists operating against the flow of traffic.
The police public relations officer for Lagos State, Ben Hundeyin, said on Friday that the unnamed police officer and soldier seen fighting on a busy road in a video that went viral were arguing about traffic.
During a live interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Hundeyin talked about what happened before the fight.
He claimed that there had been numerous reports to the police of Carter Bridge motorists operating against the flow of traffic. The Lagos State Task Force was allegedly given the order to stop it as a result.
The PPRO said that the task force noticed the car driving against traffic two days prior while traveling on that road extremely early in the morning.
“They halted the vehicle, and the soldier inside became irate that they had stopped the vehicle despite seeing him inside, and he delivered a command that they should let the vehicle go, and he was completely disregarded.”
He was not in a position to issue a command. There is no threat of war here. Even though he had no business directing them, he nevertheless did so, telling them to let the vehicle go.
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Even if the soldier was allowed to give orders, the police spokesman says the order he is accused of giving was illegal.
“[The soldier] was ignored once more, which infuriated him because, despite what he was saying, he was completely disregarded.”
Because he was attempting to disarm an armed police officer, which is entirely dangerous, utterly unsafe, and totally foolish, he chose to attack the officer, which many would agree is a bad choice.
But since anything could have happened, we want to praise the restraint that our men showed. “It’s completely unexpected that this is coming from an infantryman, and the gun could have gone off,” he said.
Hundeyin said that the soldier should have been more careful with the gun because the emblem on his sleeve showed that he was in the Infantry Corps.
But, he continued, “like I mentioned, we appreciate the fact that our men showed restraint because, if something had gone wrong, people would not have been patient to hear what had happened prior to it.”
People would just exclaim, “Police have killed someone again.” They are now soldiers instead of civilians.
