The annual Lagos city marathon which had over 10,000 particiP@nts in Nigeria’s commercial city was held this morning as controversy trailed some security operatives assigned to provide law and order.
Scene of the incident
A Facebook user, Ifeanyi Nwakaudu, has taken to the social networking site and shared his bitter experience at the annual Lagos state city marathon which was held in Nigeria’s commercial city this Saturday morning.
Below is how he narrated his experience exclusively for Tori News;
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Last year i was an observer, work mixed with laziness would not allow me register for me to be an athlete, so i observed and took pictures for Tori.ng basically i took pictures from Gbagada axis linking up 3rd Mainland Bridge. All these i did without any fear from the police or security operators because they were friendly with their duties.
In the same spirit and love for the Lagos Marathon, i came out to take pictures along Gbagada axis, i was taking pictures just opposite Domino Pizza, a police officer with id number 366072 with name tag Obajulaiye Monday, spoke with kind words explaining that the turn out was low that next year he would be a particiP@nt and not a security personnel… I was glad that i could even have a conversation with a Police officer.
I decided to take more pictures before a Police Officer with the name K. O. Smith and Andy Okunbor, decided to spoil the name of the Nigerian police force, tarnish the image of Nigeria and make me feel less human and Nigerian, officer Smith had to hit my Phone off my hands while Officer Andy picked it up, with no words of what my offense was.
I will not bad mouth the works of the police but these two men are not worthy to wear the police uniform, first their uniforms had no id number associated with it, secondly while i waited for three hours before my phone was handed over to me, they harassed onlookers, slapping people trying to take pictures or people trying to cross the road.
These set of people should not be the people deployed to man an international event such as the Lagos State Marathon because i observed that there were international athletes and observers and what kind of story will they take back home.
If these message will get to the right authorities, i will urge them to look into the activities of K. O. Smith and Andy Okunbor and for Officers like Obajulaiye Monday he needs to be commended.
Below are pictures i could take before my phone was seized and when i got it back the race has finished from my location.
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