The newly posted Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Area ‘B’ command of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), Daniel Rotimi has described indiscriminate arrest of freight forwarders and containers on highway as the overzealousness of some police officers in his command.
Daniels said this when he paid a courtesy visit to the founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Dr. Boniface Aniebonam at Apapa, Lagos yesterday.
He however promised to look into the matter stating that any Nigerian with legitimate business must not be harassed or intimated by officers who are expected to uphold the law.
“The problem we do have is that our men do go above the directive given to them. Also, I see no reason why someone doing a legitimate job should be intimidated or harassed.
“Like I said I will be at your service. I will always be of help to you and I believe I have a lot of work to do to ensure that things continue to roll smoothly,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Aniebonam had appealed to the DPO on the alleged abuse of agents by officers under his units especially over indiscriminate interception on containers and arrest of clearing agents.
Aniebonam alleged that overt ime, members of NAGAFF and other freight forwarders have been arrested.
“The interception of containers and accosting of agents by officers from Area B command should be looked into. Most of the time, the arrest is because they find two or more identity cards on then but exigency of our job allowed for that.
“They do not know why agents go around with more than one identity cards and it is with this they arrest our members.
“I think what they should be concerned about in the ID cards is whether it has the same pictures, names and designation.
“Under licensing regulations of agents, there are need for one to have more than one ID cards because if you go to a shipping company for release of cargo for another company, you must have the ID cards of that company,” he said.
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