Red Light: Pushing Legal Boundaries

The recurring incidence of robberies while waiting for the red  light traffic, after dark, in Lagos metropolis have become worrisome, motorists have taken to beating the traffic light once it is past 9pm in a bid to avoid being robbed on a stretch of lonely road.

Mr. Chris Onifade works in Apapa, a stickler for rules, but after a colleague recounted his ordeal about how he was robbed of his car and how the robbers stripped him down to his boxers leaving him helpless in the middle of the road at just a few minutes past 10pm because he was law abiding enough to wait at a red light, Onifade immediately adjusted his morals from doing the right thing to doing the safest thing.

So, the lines begin to blur on what is morally right when security is threatened. Where is the place of the police in all this? At daytime you see them everywhere on the road, even motorists make concerted efforts to avoid being harrassed by them but after dark you hardly see them. Police duties have day and night shift, or does their night duties not extend to night patrol?

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police Mr. Ajani Owoseni needs to address this lapse and beef up security at night, it is not enough to have Police Officers in tents at road corners, where they sleep through the night when they should actually be seen patrolling to deter would be robbers.

This will go a long way to restore the confidence of night road users of their security so that they do  not have  to beat the red light, because when we start to have legit reasons why we can not maintain law and order, we keep pushing the boundaries without end.