Elizabeth Ezeh, a student of Micheal Okpara University, has narrated how some police officers assaulted her for filming their harassment of a motorist in Abia State.

On Sunday, around 10 pm, Ezeh was returning from Jobit Eatery, along the Abia State secretariat road, when she saw about six police officers manhandling a driver.

Ezeh said she suspected that the officers wanted to extort the man, who had been accused of driving a stolen car.

While the officers beat and dragged him, Ezeh was propelled to film the event as it unfolded in her presence.

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“They said I filmed them and asked me to delete the video. I told them I couldn’t give them my phone,” Ezeh told FIJ.

“Before I knew it, they just dragged me from where I was standing and pushed me to their vehicle. We were seven in it, but I was at the owner’s side of the vehicle. They were dragging my phone, telling me to open it. I told them it was my right to film their harassment.”

Enraged Ezeh said she raised the alarm when one of the officers pounced on her, wondering if he wanted to rape her.

“In the process of struggling, one of them almost collected the phone from me. I bit his hand then he left me. He was insulting me and I was insulting him too,” she continued. “I was able to take their photo.”

She said the officers entered the man’s vehicle and instructed him to drive to the location where they would extort him.

“So the guy drove and stopped at a busy place. I think he stopped there because he felt that people were there and would come to his aid,” she continued.

“As he stopped, the police officers got down from the car and forced him down, trying to struggle with him. The guy was with a girl, probably his girlfriend. She was crying as the incident went on. So I was like, ‘This thing these people are doing is not good’, then I came in.”

Ezeh noted that the officers often make illegal arrests to extort unsuspecting citizens in the area.  

She also suggested that the officers, who appear in black clothings for their illegal operations, might have come from the Afara Police Station in the state, recalling how some of his friends were harassed a few weeks earlier.

Geoffrey Ogbonna, the spokesman of the Abia Police Command, did not answer his call when contacted for comments. He also did not reply to the text message sent to him.