Some officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have been accused of brutalising a middle-aged Uber driver, Luke Gum, in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State.
According to the Uber driver, who is demanding justice, the incident happened over a traffic matter on Monday.
It was learnt that the driver’s car was bashed from behind by a man suspected of being a senior official of the anti-graft agency.
The Uber driver, while narrating the incident said he was terribly insulted by the other driver who dented his car when stepped out, despite seeing that his (Gum) car received a chunk of the damage.
He said, “I was even the one who wanted to take the matter to the police station before she (the official) and her driver stopped me from going. After the woman made a call, 10 EFCC officials came with a bus and forced me to enter. One of the officials punched my neck, while another kept hitting me with the butt of his gun from Awolowo Road to their office.
“When we finally reached their office, they told me to sit on the floor. I didn’t comply immediately since I did not commit any crime. When they saw that I refused to sit on the floor, one of them hit my leg with his boot, and I fell. And then, the madam was telling her other colleagues that I was trying to fight her and that her driver beat me up, and she said that was why she had to call the office.”
The Uber driver stated that he was detained for over three hours, adding that the officials drove him to the police station at Onikan, where he was not allowed to make any statement and was only told to get brake oil to clean the part where the car of the EFCC official was slightly brushed.
The spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr Dele Oyewale, dismissed claims that Gum was beaten up by the agency’s officials.
Oyewale said, “Along the line, he brushed the official car of our officer. And the driver of the car, not our officer, came out to challenge him. There was a scuffle between the two of them.
“The two of them became wounded as a result of the scuffle. And when they took him to the office, they didn’t brutalise him. They only brought him to the office for the driver to drop off our officer. And they went to the police station afterwards. They wanted to detain him, but it was the same officer that asked them to let him go.”
However, the Divisional Crime Officer at Onikan Police Division, identified simply as Mr Adesanya, could not be reached for a comment as his mobile phone rang out on both Wednesday and Friday.