Mayowa Egberongbe, a chemical engineer, has accused police officers attached to Elere Police Station in Agege, Lagos, of extorting N10,000 from him.

Egberongbe, who described the police station as the ‘headquarters of criminally-minded police officers’, said he was arrested for committing no crime.

“The officers signalled that I park under the bridge in Agege for them to search me. This was about 5:30 pm on Tuesday,” he told FIJ.

He said he parked and was ready to show them his papers without raising an eyebrow, but the disposition of the officers when he showed them his licence did not seem as though they were satisfied with the search.

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“After I gave him my licence, one officer asked me to open my boot. Upon checking my boot, he found a USA number plate. With a grimace on his face, he asked why I owned the plate number,” Egberongbe said.

“I explained to them that the USA number plate came with the car as it was imported. I told the officer I bought the car in May 2021 and just dumped the foreign number plate in my boot.”

However, the officers did not listen to Egberongbe’s explanation. They insisted it was a criminal offence to have a foreign number plate in his possession.

“The officers requested that I drive to their station. As a peaceful person, I did not argue. But on getting to their station, the officers showed me many photographs of people with number plates, whom they tagged criminals. At this point, I became scared,” he said.

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“They asked about my workplace, and I showed them my work ID. They held on to my driver’s licence and work ID, insisting that I buy them a bag of rice or they would call a photographer to take my picture with the number plate and make me a criminal. “

Egberongbe did not succumb to their threats. He told them he could not afford a bag of rice at the time, but the officers said he was not ready to be free. The officers told him to pay N30,000, the equivalent of a bag of rice, but he stood his ground that he had no money.

However, when Egberongbe realised the officers were determined to either get a bribe or indict him, he called his elder brother as he had no money on him.

“When my brother got to the station, he offered to transfer N10,000 to the officers, but they told him they wanted cash, saying it was a sin to accept a transfer,” he said.

“At first, they said it was too little for them. But eventually, they accepted it.”

FIJ made several calls to CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, the spokesperson for Lagos police, but they were not answered. Also, a text message sent to his line was not responded to.