If I were the CP, I would have prosecuted both the guards and those who put them there for conduct likely to cause a breach of the public peace.
You have no right to block a public highway. That the Government closed its eyes to the illegality due to the concern for people to have a psychological feeling of watching over themselves does not change the reality of what it is in law.
No one can feign ignorance of the person of a CP approaching with his official convoy. And to ask him to identify where he was going, is to take the illusion of power too far.
If I were the CP I would have pursued this matter to a logical conclusion by prosecuting those guards and their employers to give them the opportunity to put before the court the arguments that the ignorant emergency lawyers have been putting up on social media and I would have published the judgment of the court for them to cure themselves.
For the reason that he allowed himself to be dissuaded, it now appears that his lawful arrest of the security guards and those who tried to accost him in that lawful measure was a mere show of power or high-handedness.
Illegality and lawlessness have overtaken Lagos neighborhoods with these so called estates where homeowners just join wall to wall in a community built by Government and put a gate and call it an Estate.
They operate like separate countries where your require a visa to enter. When an aberration is allowed to persist it acquires the toga of tradition.
That is what has happened in Lagos and all these illegal contraptions that call themselves estates.
Outside of Lagos, all sorts of uniformed people armed with all sorts of weapons have taken over the streets in the name of vigilantes or community guards.
They harass motorists and ordinary citizens going about their lawful businesses. It has become a hazard just to visit your village community. You may get killed and branded a brigand.
Lawlessness has become the norm. Everyone is now Government, dishing out commands and punishments.
Something needs be done urgently to arrest the tide.
Yes, I am a former Estate and CDA chairman. I know that no law created these estates or gave them police powers of search and restriction of movement.
They are all voluntary associations whose by-laws should bind only those who subscribe to them.
They have become a handshake that has gone beyond the elbow.
