The Famous On-Air Personality Benjamin Ubiri popularly known as Ben200 in the Nation’s capital narrated his ordeal in a petition to the Director, DRTS, Abuja.
Read the petition below. Petition: Notice ofHarassment, Threat to life and Confiscation of Samsung A20 Phone by Men of the Directorate of Road Traffic Services (DRTS) in the FCT.
I am a journalist in Abuja Nigeria. I work as a presenter at WE FM106.3 Abuja and I pass through the Berger round about every morning to go back home from work. I encounter the men of the Directorate ofRoad traffic services. Today however was worse as I was harassed and the phone of my producer snatched and detained.
I wish to petition men of the DRTS of the FCT stationed at the Berger round about today, the 4th of May 2021, at about 12noon, for their very unprofessional manner of handling road users as they deliberately decided to waste our time, and in the event confiscated a Samsung A20 phone from my producer.
On this day, 4th of May,2021 I was driving from WE FM, 106.3, where I work as a presenter for the Good Morning Abuja Show, in the Company of my producerMr GeorgNakanda. When we noticed a gridlock caused by activities of the men ofDTRS on duty doing their routine vehicle paper inspection, we managed to go through, and an official by name AbubakarR. Jumped in on us and stood in front of the vehicle and we advised him that it was dangerous to do that, he insisted that we should pull over and we did, and I immediately showedhim that my vehicle papers were intact. I implored him to go through,so we can catch up with an appointment.
At this point he walked away, when he returned I repeated the plea, that we were in a hurry to meet an appointment somewhere and that he should return the papers so we could go away.Instead he walked away again and handed over the papers to another official who came in and said we should come out of the vehicle, that he wanted to inspect the entire vehicle, at this point it was obvious that they were out to waste our time andtrying to get abusive and physical, so my producer Georg Nakanda came out and started to record the incident with his phone.
From nowhere another official whom we could not identify by his tag, came in and snatched the Samsung A20 phone which is both recorder and official phone from Georg. He threated to slap him but for my intervention, He took the phone and went away with the said Abubakar R, who was the official who stopped us in the first instance.
When the other official was done with his inspection, I asked if he was willing to release the papers and he handed over the papers to us.
When we requested for the phone he did notrespond immediately, instead he said we have to go and beg for the phone, asking us why we wererecording since they had not started any physical fight yet. We stayed a while but he said Abubakar R, and his co-official were nowhere to be found.
I write this therefore to request that the men who did this be investigated and prevented from harassing us or inflicting any injury on us as that route is our daily route from work.
I also wish that the authorities help collect the phone and send it for Forensic Evaluation to be sure it has not been tapped, tampered with or spoilt. It also contains vital secret documents, bank details as well as contacts of high profile people, we are afraid that these officials would have a sinister intention for taking the phone since it was not on security lock at the time of confiscation and we had identified ourselves as journalists.
We intend to take this matter up in the law courts but we hope that this will be officially dealt with.
Thank you.
Benjamin Ubiri.
07034952643
CC
Fct minister
FCT Administration Reform Coordination and Service Improvement Department (RCSI)
CP fct
Director DSS
Nuj chairman fct
