General Manager of Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Olajide Oduyoye, has berated the lady officer, Odunlami Adepeju, in a viral video circulating online.
Oduyoye described the act of the lady officer as an “unprofessional conduct, misbehaviour and public display of violence,” saying Adepeju has demonstrated “poor professional judgement of the situation as a public servant” of Lagos State Government whose conduct is the focus of the public, thereby “misrepresenting and casting smear on the state government and the agency.”
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He said the lady officer and her male subordinate in the video have been “invited for investigation and that, on conclusion, disciplinary action for misrepresenting Lagos State Government and the agency would be meted out to the culprits as laid down in the rules of the extant laws of Lagos State Civil Service.”
LASTMA chief assured members of the public of “due diligence” over the incident which occurred at Aromire junction in Ikeja on September 11.
Recounting Adepeju’s statement in the course of interrogation, Oduyoye said: “Odunlami Adepeju, in her statement, claimed that at about 2.00pm on Friday, she sighted a black Honda vehicle with registration number SF 885 KJA running on red light at Aromire junction while the driver and passenger did not strap the seat belt on, she did not act at the material time but only warned the driver.
“She further said that to her dismay, on the vehicle’s return journey, the driver and the passenger were still not strapping the seat belt and she decided to apprehend the recalcitrant driver for the traffic infraction which led to altercation with the passenger biting her finger and the driver punching her head resulting in lacerations which she also said got her enraged.”
The general manager noted that though the driver of the vehicle actually committed a traffic infraction, “the LASTMA official should have simply documented the details of the vehicle for action by the Zonal authority instead of allowing the issue to degenerate to the level of being assaulted which led to her becoming angry according to her.”
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Oduyoye, in a statement by the agency’s Assistant Director, Public Affairs, Filade Olumide, explained that LASTMA as a government agency, trains and continues to retrain its staff on proper discharge of their functions and duties professionally, an example is the recent retraining of all field staff at Lagos State Law Enforcement Training Institute (LETI).
He enjoined the members of the public to continue to report all misdemeanors by any officer on Lagos roads, so that “we can make corrections and be better, more efficient and effective traffic managers/agency.”
