Aderemi Tijani, a Lagos State resident, was out with three of his friends on Sunday night. All four men were spending a night of fun in Ikeja, the state capital, but things quickly turned sour.

Tijani was a local, and had spent the better part of his life in the state, but Oghenekaro, Oghenekesiri and Oghenekefe Bruno had all just recently arrived in the state from the UK.

Soon after Tijani left them to retire home, policemen showed up, threatened to kill them, and extorted N20,000 in exchange for their lives.

“I was with them that night,” Tijani told FIJ. “We went out to Allen, Ikeja, but I left them at about 9 pm to go home. Soon after, they told me police stopped them and collected N20,000 from them.”

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When FIJ spoke with Oghenekaro, he said that they had gone to the University of Suya, an outlet, in Allen Avenue, but when they made to leave at about 10 pm, policemen stopped their Bolt vehicle and demanded to search their phones.

“We had just left the place, and had not even driven for long before the police stopped us,” Oghenekaro explained. “They put me in their Hilux vehicle and rode with the others in the Bolt.

“They said they were taking us to their command, and that was when we decided to call Tijani to let him know where we were, and also call a senior policeman to intervene.

“This policeman spoke to them, and told them to let them go, but after the call was over, they began asking why I involved their superior. One of them took me out of the vehicle, and to a corner. He said regardless of the superior’s intervention, they could shoot us dead there and nothing would happen.”

He said the policemen demanded pounds from them since they were UK returnees, but when they said they had no foreign currency on them, the policemen demanded for N200,000.

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After bargaining for a while, the policemen settled for N20,000 and provided a UBA bank account number for them to pay it into. This account was in the name of one Ajibade Ademola.

Oghenekaro told FIJ that he could only get the name of one policeman. His name-tag read ‘Onanefe’.

FIJ called Benjamin Hundeyin on Monday, but he requested that we send him a text message. As of press time, he was yet to respond to our text message sent on Monday.

Ojukwu is a reporter with FIJ in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.