Policemen attached to Area F police command in Lagos State have returned the N72,000 they extorted from Bobby Ogbolu, an actor.

The men returned the money on Wednesday afternoon after FIJ visited the command to demand reasons for Ogbolu’s arrest and extortion.

While there, Adeola Adeoye, the station’s supervising officer, identified the culprits, invited them into his office and made them return the money in cash.

Two of the five policemen involved in the actor’s wrongful arrest were present, and they confessed to raiding a location in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, arresting Ogbolu and three others, holding them in an interrogation room and letting them go only after collecting the sum.

THE ARREST

In the company of friends, Ogbolu had gone to a location in Ikeja, the Lagos State capital, to buy drinks for a friend’s birthday celebration. It was sometime past 11 pm on Tuesday.

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While making for the entrance, police showed up and began questioning some girls over their choice of outfits. Soon after, these policemen called for a bus, and when it arrived, Ogbolu and two others were thrown into it.

On the bus, the police used a taser on the actor, seized his phone and refused to disclose his offence until they arrived Area F.

While there, the police demanded N500,000 to let them go. There were no criminal allegations or charges against them, but the police wanted the sum in exchange for their freedom.

It took the intervention of another friend of the actor, who witnessed the arrest, to get them out. This friend showed up at the station and parted with N56,000 to secure their release. He also spent another N28,000 getting there.

While Ogbolu was unaware his friend was paying to secure his release, another policeman was in with him, giving him an account number to transfer N16,000 to. The actor paid. Both men spent a combined total of N100,000, but only N72,000 of it was given to the police.

SEMBLANCE OF JUSTICE

When FIJ met Adeoye and two of the policemen involved in the arrest, they apologised and returned the money in cash to the actor, saying they were cooperative with anyone who came to them to report matters like this.

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“Your friend came with an intermediary, and he spoke to us and gave us N56,000 on his own,” the policeman who drove the vehicle used in the arrest told Ogbolu.

“Don’t escalate the matter, please,” Adeoye told FIJ. “We are all here, and you don’t know where we can meet each other tomorrow. You see how I reacted speedily to it.”

However, some policemen in Lagos told FIJ the issue of errant policemen was prevalent in the state because Adegoke Fayoade, the commissioner of police, was slow to sanctions.

“When last did a DPO lose his job? Nothing happens, and the DPOs know these things,” a policeman told FIJ on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to speak to the press.

Checks by FIJ show the last time the media reported a DPO’s removal was in January 2024. The state command axed the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Gowon Estate Division over a lawyer’s detention. Since then, there have been several reports of unlawful detentions and extortion across the state.

On Wednesday, FIJ visited Benjamin Hundeyin, the spokesman for the police in the state, and he promised to investigate the matter.

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.