Published 2nd Mar, 2022

By Joseph Adeiye

Adebayo Lateef was going about his daily business as an e-hailing driver on Sunday when officers of the Lagos State Police Command took control of his car and then took N28,000 from him.

Lateef, who works with the e-hailing company InDriver, got a request from a rider in Millennium Estate, Gbagada. Driving past the junction that would lead him into Redemption Crescent, Lateef put his car on reverse to get back on track. About nine police officers immediately pulled him over and asked him to vacate the driver’s seat. The officers were in uniform, but used a Toyota Sienna space bus and a minibus well known as korope.

“Two hefty men stood in front of my car with their guns facing north. Another three hefty men entered my car and ordered me to go to the back seat. I calmly obliged. They asked for reasons I reversed on the highway. I explained to them that it’s not a highway, but they turned a deaf ear to my explanation. They asked what I wanted to do, as I would pay ₦250,000 if taken to the station. They said they would collect just ₦100,000 from me. I told them that I didn’t have such money with me,” Lateef told FIJ.

Lateef told the officers who had taken control of his car that he had only ₦20,000 in his bank account. The police officers urged him to get more money, but he revealed to them that he was in debt and had no one to call. The officers then drove him to a bank along Airport Road to withdraw ₦20,000.

“They drove me down to Airport Road in search of an ATM to withdraw the balance of ₦20,000 in the account shown to them,” he said.

There was a long queue at the ATM, so the officers suggested that Lateef make a transfer to one Alice Odey.

Alice is a POS operator known by the police officers. The police officers waited until Lateef made a successful transfer to Alice before searching his car for more money.

“The most annoying part of the whole scenerio was that they ransacked my car and opened the arm rest where they saw ₦8,500. They shared the money among themselves right in my presence before leaving, and they gave me ₦500, simply because I asked if they wanted to leave me with nothing. That was when they handed me ₦500 from my own money after a transfer of ₦20,000,” he said.

When contacted, Patricia Amadin, the DPO of Anthony Police Division, said her officers in Anthony do not use any vehicle other than the available police vans.

“We don’t have that here. We have three patrol vehicles, and all of them are sound,” she said.

The DPO and the administrative clerk of the police division also denied knowing Alice Odey.

Ifako Police Division, the other police division around the area where the extortion took place, also denied using vehicles other than the assigned police vans or knowing Alice Odey.

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