Twenty-five-year-old Guitarist, Olude Adetunji has revealed how some policemen attached to Area ‘E’ Command in Festac, Lagos State forcefully take the sum of N15,000 from him, for restricting them from searching his phone.

Adetunji, who spoke to newsmen on Tuesday said he was on his way to his friend’s house at 711 Road, Festac when the policemen stopped the motorbike he was on.

According to him, after searching and finding nothing incriminating about him, the policemen requested for his phone to be searched, a request he refused to grant, reminding them of the Inspector-General of Police directive on the search of Nigerian phones.

Speaking further he alleged that after being delayed for four fours, eight policemen followed him to a Point of Sales (POS) machine where he was forced to contact some of his friends to send him N10,000 to make up N15,500 which he withdrew for them.

Adetunji while recounting his ordeal said, “ On March 24, 2023, I took a motorbike from First Gate to my friend’s place at 711 Festac. We had not even gone far before some police officers stopped the motorbike in front of the Festac police station. The time was 9 am.

“They threw so many questions at me, and I answered them accordingly. Then they searched my bag and my pocket and found nothing. I just had my sketchbook and Bluetooth speaker in my bag.

“After that, one of them tossed my bag to another officer and told me to meet the other officer for further search. I reluctantly answered the second officer as I knew they were probably up to something.

“The second officer also searched me but found nothing. Then he told me to open my phone and I said “Sir this is not right. The IGP has kicked against it. After that statement, they started dragging and beating me to enter their shuttle. I struggled for a few seconds but nobody was there to hear me out because it was at the front of the police station. They drove into the police station afterward and started threatening me.

“At the time they were dragging me, I asked what my offence was, one of them claimed to have sustained an injury on his arm during the struggle. He said he was going to take me to court. They told me to pay N200,000 for assaulting a police officer in uniform. I was surprised because how will one person assault over eight policemen?

“ I had just N7,000 in my account. After all the threats, I had to call a friend of mine to send me 10,000. So they took me to the front of the police station where I transferred the N15,500 to a POS Operator before they left me. This was after keeping me for four hours”.

This is not the first time cases of extortion have been reported against the police in Festac. Youths in the area lamented that despite the prohibition of phone searches by the Police High command, they were daily overpowered by such actions.

(Text, excluding headline: New Telegraph)

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