Frederick Adebayo and Queeneth Abimbola (not real name), his fiancée, drove into Lagos from Ibadan, Oyo State, on Tuesday.

The couple travelled to visit Abimbola’s sister in the Ajah area of Lagos State, and all went fine until they were robbed at about 5:17 pm.

While driving away from their host’s house, policemen attached to the Ajah police division stopped the couple, demanded Adebayo’s driver’s license, and then took N10,000 from him when he was only able to provide an affidavit and police report confirming it got lost recently.

“My temporary license got lost, and I got a sworn affidavit and a police report as instructed by the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC),” Adebayo told FIJ. “The FRSC said it would permit me to drive until I got a new license. I’d been producing these documents when stopped by policemen until Tuesday.

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“The Ajah policemen took control of my car and refused to hear my pleas. They made me transfer N5,000 to a Palmpay account with the name ‘Nnamdi Okoye’, and then they collected an extra N5,000 cash.

“They were about five to six of them in that vicinity, and they were carrying guns and canisters. I was very uncomfortable because of the things I had heard about Ajah police.”

Abimbola told FIJ she had an Android phone in the vehicle before the police gained entry but she hadn’t seen the phone since the encounter.

FIJ called Adof Ugwu, DPO Ajah Police Division, on Sunday, and he promised to invite the complainants to his office and probe the incident.

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.