Pandemonium in Benin as WAI officials manhandle nursing mother

There was pandemonium, yesterday, in Benin as officials of the War Against Indiscipline, WAI, attached to Edo State Government, engaged a nursing mother in a fight over alleged breach of traffic laws along Sapele Road.

Vanguard observed that the nursing mother, who was rushing her one-year-old child to the hospital, breached jumped traffic light and was pursued by WAI officials.

Two of the officials forced their way into her Honda Car, manhandling the woman in the process, having refused to heed her plea that she was rushing her ward to the hospital.

One of the officials slapped the woman and gave her a black eye as they forcefully stepped on the car brake, which made her hit her chest on the steering.

The incident attracted a crowd, who almost torched the WAI officials’ towing van, before more of their members ran to the scene.

Tension heightened when one of the WAI officials escaped from the car after he noticed the presence of the mob, but the angry nursing mother held on tight to one of the WAI officials and beat him up inside the car.

She held on to the man until the arrival of her husband, who took them to the state secretariat of Department of State Services, DSS.

The DSS directed them to the Ministry of Transport but while they were there, men of the Nigeria security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, came to arrest the WAI operative that slapped the woman.

The arrest of the operative elicited reaction from his colleagues, who insisted that their colleague should not be arrested.

Some of the WAI officials told Vanguard that the woman flouted the traffic law.

At press time yesterday, the WAI officials were still protesting their colleague’s arrest, more so when the arrest was effected by the civil defence and not the police.