TRADERS along IBB Way, Lokoja, Kogi State on Friday staged a protest over illegal blockade of the highway by the Nigeria Police.

The road serves as the major road for motorists travelling from the eastern part of the country to the northern part of the country.

The traders, who owned shops along the road complained that the action of the police paralysed their economic activities as customers found it difficult to stop over for shopping.

The police blocked the road with heavy rocks thereby preventing people from plying the road thus giving way to heavy traffic around the state police command headquarters.

Traders and shop owners around the area are  demanding the immediate dismantling of the roadblock.

According to the leader of the protesters numbering over fifty, Mr. Godswill Emenike, since the blockade,  their businesses have suffered lack of patronage, stressing that they will continue the protest until the police remove the roadblock.

“It is only in this country that a police formation will act with impunity. They don’t consider the rights of ordinary citizens. Their approach to security issue has always been by mundane method. They should imbibe modern method of policing rather than blocking a whole road in the name of securing their station,” he stated.

He lamented the action of the police, which he said fell below people’s expectations. He added that traders had lost thousands of naira to the blockade, just as he appealed to the Commissioner of Police in the state to order his men to remove the road block.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Kogi State Police Command,  Mr. Ile Simon, while reacting justified the action of the police saying it was a strategy to forestall a Boko Haram attack.

He urged the public to understand with the police saying Boko Haram is targeting the police and that they were aware of the plight of the commuters plying that section of the expressway.