Police to probe dozens of checkpoints on Calabar Carnival routes

The Cross River State Police Command has said it will investigate reports and petitions from motorists and residents concerning forcible extortions by police officers during the night, along the Calabar Carnival routes.

Police Public Relations Officer Irene Ugbo disclosed this while responding to calls from journalists on the matter.

“My team and I will launch an investigation immediately into all the complaints. If found to be true, the culprits would be punished, and the issue would be quickly handled,” she stressed.

This is coming against the backdrop of complaints of police extortion by motorists, in particular along Marian Road, a popular and busy stretch of road in the heart of the Calabar Municipality that harbours nightclubs, hotels, and eateries and is a beehive of activities at night.

Already, the impending carnival has begun to pull crowds into popular public spots and eateries, including the Christmas Village on Marian Road. The influx has raised the tempo of movements and economic activities, occasioning police checkpoints for security reasons.

However, drivers in Calabar have been lamenting that many of the police checkpoints demand N100 each, which vehicle owners must compulsorily part with.

During separate interviews, commercial drivers in particular told DAILY POST they do not have any problems with police officers’s presence on Marian Road at night but the demand they make has become burdensome.

The drivers had appealed to the police authorities to reduce the number of checkpoints and help reduce the N100 extortion at the checkpoints.

One of the commercial drivers, Akpan Udoh, in his lamentation, told DAILY POST: “Marian Road is not a very long road, yet, from Rabana Roundabout to Efioete Roundabout, you have about four different checkpoints and they all make demands from drivers on both lanes of the road.

“They create very long traffic by barricading a large part of the road, leaving just a small portion for vehicular movement and in doing so, they make you burn so much fuel before it gets to your turn.”

Asuquo Edet, another commercial minibus driver, narrated how he was stopped at one of the checkpoints on Thursday at 8 pm by a police officer who demanded the usual N100.

When he complained that he had parted with N100 twice, at two checkpoints, he claimed he was ordered to park and bring out his vehicle’s documents.

The checkpoints, he said, are too many.

“If we give N100 at each of the checkpoints going and do the same while coming, it means for a trip, we would have spent between N800 and N1,000 for settling the police,” he said.