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By Madu Obi
Tricycle drivers in Awka, the Anambra State capital, detained recently by the state's anti tout squad, have alleged that the operatives constantly flogged them with planks without food for days.
At their end of year party in Awka, the drivers said the two days they were detained at the Anambra State anti tout facility in Onitsha was like hell.
The chairman of the UNIZIK Keke Park in Awka, John Paul Nnaegbuna, who was arrested alongside others, lamented that they were beaten like common criminals in the anti tout camp.
"When we got at anti -tout squad facility in Onitsha, we slept inside their bus and in the morning they used 2x2 planks to beat us , hitting our legs and joints with the planks.
"After beating us, they laid us down under the sun and continued with the beating. It was when their 'oga' came out and ordered them to stop the beating that they stopped," he said.
He also alleged that members of the so-called anti -tout squad were recruiting real touts and sending them out to various places to be collecting money for them.
Nnaegbuna added: "In our presence, they were telling some of the arrested touts that they will issue them with identity cards and they will move them to work at their respective places .
"They told them that nobody will disturb or arrest them again, provided they should be making returns. They gave them their phone numbers to call them just in case anyone disturbed them."
Recalling the incident that led to their arrest, Nnaegbuna said further: "Before these people came for the operation, somebody called me that I should provide a guide to them . I assured them that we shall help them to identify the touts .
"I told the person that in the last one year, we have been fighting the touts and have driven them away. And my number was sent to the coordinator of anti tout squad, Salomon Chukwuebuka whom I know as Ebuka when he was a driver to Air Vice Marshal Ben Obi, the special adviser to Governor Soludo on security matters.
"I never knew he was the person until this issue came up. When I met him and told him that he and his men did not behave maturely, he picked offence and asked me if I was the one to tell him what to do.
"When they came into the park some people were wearing Unified Hybrid Enforcement Team (UHBET) uniforms while others were wearing State Anti Touts squad SASA. I asked them who are you, they replied that they came to catch Agboro. I told them that there are no Agboro at our park. I told them that everybody here is a Keke driver.
"I told them also that all the people in the park are Keke drivers and we know ourselves one by one .It was on the process of discussion that I had wanted to call one of our members, Mr Iwunor to come in and beg them that one of them just pounced on me with with knife and cut my finger.
"He said I was making calls as if making calls has become a crime. It was then that Keke drivers said no, you cannot come into our park and start beating our chairman and others without any justification and they started protecting themselves.
They then began to shoot and called for reinforcement who came and dealt with every body in the park mercilessly".
He lamented that members of the squad vandalized their vehicles right inside the park without any justifiable reason.
He appealed to the state government to intervene in the matter by repairing the damaged vehicles as they are the only means of their livelihood.
According to him, all his members are up-to-date in their tax payments, because the park management made sure that every person that loads in the meets his tax obligation to government.
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