Six Lagos policemen face probe over N100,000 extortion

The Lagos State Police Command has summoned six policemen to its headquarters in Ikeja over an alleged extortion of N100,000 from a member of the public.

The command’s spokesman, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed this to NAN on Friday.

“Six policemen are involved in the matter. They have been summoned to the headquarters in Ikeja for interrogation.

“The money involved has been collected back for the owner,” he said.

On Thursday, a member of the public, simply identified as Oluwagbadura, on his verified Twitter handle, alleged that some policemen extorted him.

He claimed that that at 2:45 p.m., some police officers stopped him at Soliki, Aguda, Lagos and conducted the usual search on him.

Oluwagbadura alleged that at about 3:44 p.m., the officers escorted him to a POS and withdrew N100,000 of his money.

“After the search and not finding anything on me, they proceeded to seize my phone and company laptop and tagged me a yahoo boy.

“My crime, they said, is that I do not have an ID card as a freelancer.

“They searched my phone. They called me a criminal for chatting with my friends on WhatsApp.

“They threatened to shoot and lock me up! Next, they took me to their station, just few meters away, then forced me to admit to being a criminal,” he said.

Oluwagbadura further said that he refused to admit committing any crime, stressing that the officers then asked him to write a statement and thereafter, signed papers to bail himself.

“I transferred N100,000 to the POS vendor, and then paid N2,000 for charges (which was screenshot.)”.

He said that there were six officers and one of them threatened to deal with him in cell and nothing would happen.

He said some of them were in mufti, including the one who acted as their lead.

“All of these things happened at the Police divisional headquarters, Soliki Aguda. I need justice and my money back, please,” he tweeted.

The complaint was tweeted at about 7.46 p.m., while many members of the public reacted to the post.

At 10.36 p.m., Oluwagbadura tweeted again to thank all that helped to broadcast his complaints.

“Update: First, thanks to everyone who contributed a tweet. I got my money back completely.

“Special thanks to @SavvyRinu, @BenHundeyin (the spokesman for police in Lagos), @segalink and the DPO, who was pretty nice,” he said.

The Star