Lagos Journalist Recounts 2010s Attack by Task Force, Links Incident to Spinal Injury

_Federal High Court ruling affirms public right to film police in 2026_

By Lod Onyeji 

LAGOS — A Nigerian maritime journalist says a violent encounter with the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences Unit in the early 2010s left him with spinal injuries that have since led to paraplegia and ongoing treatment at the National Orthopaedic Hospital Igbobi, Lagos [NOHIL].

Obiajulu Agu, administrator of _MARITIME MATTERS_, described the incident in a recent account detailing how he was detained and beaten in Apapa after filming officers he said were extorting commercial motorcyclists along Wharf Road. The unit, commonly known as the Lagos State Taskforce, is tasked with enforcing environmental sanitation and traffic regulations.

According to Agu, officers seized his phone and laptop, assaulted him for approximately 10 minutes, and held him in a “Black Maria” detention truck before transferring him to the unit’s Alausa headquarters. He said he was released after intervention from the then Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tunji Bello, now Executive Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Agu said the physical trauma from the beating contributed to degenerative lumbar spine disease, for which he has been on NOHIL’s waiting list for corrective surgery since 2025. His next appointment is scheduled for July 6, 2026.

The account resurfaces as legal and official positions on filming law enforcement in public have shifted. In March 2026, the Federal High Court in Warri, Delta State, ruled in _Suit FHC/WR/CS/87/2025_ that recording police officers on duty in public spaces is a constitutional right. In April 2026, Lagos State Commissioner of Police Tijani Fatai publicly reaffirmed that members of the public are permitted to film officers performing their duties.

The Lagos State Taskforce has faced repeated allegations of misconduct over the years, though the unit maintains it operates to enforce sanitation and public order laws. Neither the current leadership of the Taskforce nor the Lagos State Police Command responded to requests for comment on the specific incident.

NOHIL, established in 1945, is a tertiary orthopaedic center that treats a high volume of road traffic injuries, particularly those involving motorcycles. The term “Igbobi landlord” has entered Lagos street parlance to describe patients admitted for such injuries.

Agu said he is sharing the account to underscore the risks journalists and citizens face when documenting public officials, and to highlight the delayed justice and health consequences that can follow.

“I pray that the surgery is effected successfully soon enough, so that I’m rescued from my bedridden and wheelchair-bound state,” he wrote.

_Obiajulu Agu is a journalist and administrator of ‘MARITIME MATTERS.’_