On Friday, Ifeoluwa (not real name), a digital marketer, was in a Bolt ride at about 11 pm along Awolowo Road in Ikeja, Lagos, when police officers attached to Area F in Ikeja stopped his car for their usual stop and search operation.

Both Ifeoluwa and his driver submitted to the search without protesting. He told the police he was a digital marketer and journalist, but that would not stop them from harassing him.

In the guise of searching, one of the officers seized Ifeoluwa’s items and touched his private part. He said, “One of them put his hands in my private part, told me to pull my shoes, collected my phones and ransacked my purse”.

Although the officers found nothing on him, they did not let him go but insisted he enter their van. According to Ifeoluwa, despite his Bolt driver’s pleas, the officers did not let him go.

“The Bolt driver begged them to return my phone so I could pay him for the ride, but they didn’t agree,” he said.

ARREST AND EXTORTION

“After about an hour of argument, they arrested me and some people who were found with cannabis. They drove me to the police station in Ikeja GRA and detained me alongside everyone they brought in. “

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At the station, the officers asked everyone to unlock their phones to check their conversations, their photos, and bank accounts. If they found any fraudulent activity, they would extort a huge sum of money from the person.

When it was Ifeoluwa’s turn, an officer checked his phone but found nothing. He then checked his account and found a little amount.

“He also checked my notes; he saw what I wrote about the Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Sportify ads I intended to run for a client. The budgets for some of these ads were in dollars, as written in my notes,” he said.

“The officer concluded that I was a ‘Yahoo’ boy because I was making social media transactions in dollars. I tried to explain it to him, but he said I was taking him for a fool. “

Next, the officer typed ‘client’ on Ifeoluwa’s WhatsApp search and began to read every conversation he could find. But again, he found nothing incriminating.

However, he stumbled on a conversation where Ifeoluwa said he needed to buy a ready-made Instagram account for a client that did not have the patience to build his following, and his verdict was that Ifeoluwa was an internet fraudster.

“From then on, he said he would collect N200,000 from me before he could let me go or make me sleep in the cell without having access to anyone. I was detained for hours, just to explain that I was not a fraudster and that I didn’t have that amount to give him,” Ifeoluwa recalled.

“He said I should state what I had, and because I didn’t want to go into the cell with actual criminals, I offered N10,000.”

The officer rejected the offer and did not let me go until 5 am when they finally agreed to collect N40,000 from me, with a side fee of N10,000. I paid a total of N50,000.

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‘IT’S JUST THE HUSTLE’

As is the custom of the police, one of the officers accompanied Ifeoluwa to an Access Bank ATM stand on Toyin Street, where he withdrew N50,000 and gave it to the officer.

For Ifeoluwa, the most painful part was how the officer who accompanied him to the ATM began to smile and act friendly after collecting the money.

“He pleaded that I shouldn’t be angry, thanked me, and said, ‘It’s just the hustle; you should understand,'” he said.

FIJ made several calls to CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, the spokesperson for Lagos police, but they were not answered. He also did not reply to the text message sent to his phone.