“End bad governance! End bad governance!”

I heard voices chanting those words from a police van at Alausa, Lagos, around 1.02 pm on Monday.

It was not hard to tell who owned the voices even though the Black Maria holding them was opposite the Alausa Police Station, where I stood. They were protesters.

Opeyemi Lawal, another FIJ reporter covering the #EndBadGovernance protest at Freedom Park, Ojota, one of the two locations Lagos High Court restricted the August 1-10 protests to, had learned that police arrested some protesters in Alausa on Monday morning.

I needed to confirm the arrest, so I went there.

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When I got to Alausa a few minutes past noon on Monday, there was a heavy security presence comprising policemen and the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC). They were stationed around Ikeja City Mall to the state secretariat and the vicinity of the police station. Even when Olayide Soaga, another FIJ reporter, joined me at Alausa about two hours later, the security operatives were still on standby.

To confirm why and where the protesters held inside the police van just across the road from where I stood were arrested, I approached the Alausa police station at about 1.07 pm. However, the words of a man retreating from the station made me pause. I heard him tell someone on the phone: “Only police officers are allowed to go in.”

After his call, I asked him if he was referring to the station, and he nodded. Nevertheless, I approached one of the many policemen just outside the station’s entrance and asked what was happening. I had not introduced myself as a journalist at this point.

“This area is no-go area,” the officer told me.

“Wahala no good. Shebi we dey talk am wahala no good. We dey pray for wahala make e no come. If e come now, e dey affect everybody. Wahala affects everybody,” he added in Pidgin.

Just as I could not enter, a lady who wanted to purchase an item inside the station (Olayide and I would discover that there were traders and buyers there) was stopped from entering. She wanted to know where she could get drugs, so she asked if I was familiar with the area. My response was no.

I had to move a few blocks from the station to avoid stares and suspicions from the officers and passersby.

When Olayide joined me at Alausa, people freely entered and exited the station. We also headed inside to speak with CSP Tokunbo Abaniwonda, the DPO of the station.

No one stopped us until we reached a door on our left. Close to the door was a piece of paper pasted on the wall. There were two phone numbers there. One had the name ‘Alausa Station ‘.

Olayide and I introduced ourselves as journalists and informed him of our intentions to speak with the DPO. While doing this, Olayide copied the phone numbers pasted on the wall.

When she looked up to see the remaining digits of the number, the police officer noticed her and asked why she was attempting to copy the phone numbers.

“Which one you dey type number?” he asked Olayide harshly.

“Somebody dey talk to me you dey type number. You are asking me question, you are picking number. If it is the number you need, copy it. If it is the DPO you need, that’s her office there,” he continued, pointing at a red brick structure at his left.

Olayide had finished writing one of the numbers before he completed his speech and we headed towards the direction the officer pointed.

An officer, whose name was not visible on the name tag, gave us a look, indicating that he wanted to know why one of us was attempting to copy the numbers.

Olayide and I approached the entry to the DPO’s office with high hopes that we would finally get responses to our burning questions.

Inside were four police officers. A paper was pasted on the wall like the office we had just left. This time, it had the phone number of the DPO – just what we needed.

We thought the heavens had answered our prayers, but we were proved wrong when the police officers did not allow me to complete my statement.

“We are journalists…”

“Journalists?” one of the police officers asked.

“We would like to see the DPO. We have some questions we would love her to respond to,” I continued.

“Go to Ojota. She is in Ojota. So go there.”

We felt we had come a long way and remained determined to speak with the DPO.

“Can we take her number?” Olayide chipped in.

“Don’t write anything. Go to Ojota. Go and ask her there,” another officer said.

Displeased with the policemen’s responses, we left the station. However, seated in front of the station was another police officer. I asked if he knew anything about the arrested protesters and he responded in the negative.

“I just got here. I don’t know anything about it. Only the DPO can answer your questions, and as you were told, she is in Ojota,” he said.

READ ALSO: Police Still Detaining Freelance Journalist Ayoola Babalola Over #EndBadGovernance Protest

I also asked if we could speak with the supervising officer, but he said the SO was the one who drove the DPO out.

We thanked him and left. However, before heading to the bus stop, Olayide thought it would be great to speak with people who may have seen the Black Maria with the protesters in it. So, we did just that and spoke to two workers in the area.

“We saw two men in the Black Maria. We don’t know where they were arrested, but I think they were coming from this side,” one of them said, pointing to the road opposite the police station.

Back at the office, Olayide called the number she could retrieve from the first paper pasted on the wall. The female police officer who answered the call said no protester was arrested in Alausa station.