Officers of the Ipaja Police Division, Lagos State, have arrested Olayinka Lewis, an Ekiti State University (EKSU) student, because he could not provide a means of identification.

The police arrested Lewis around Baruwa, in the Ipaja area of Lagos. Lewis was in an e-hailing ride with Opeyemi, his partner, when the police officers stopped their car and asked for an identification card.

“We were going out in an Uber ride when the police officers stopped us around Baruwa Inside, just after Ayobo in Ipaja. They asked Olayinka (Lewis) to identify himself,” Opeyemi narrated.

“He (Lewis) did not have his ID card on him, but he told them that he was a student. They did not find anything incriminating on him, but they insisted on taking him to the station.”

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Opeyemi said she followed the police officers to the Ipaja Divisional Police Station but they refused to let her in because she was with a phone. She said the officers tortured Lewis to get him to confess to any crime.

Oluwa Tobi, Lewis’ brother, called the attention of the police to this arrest through a tweet on Tuesday morning, and Muyiwa Adejobi, the police public relations officer, asked for evidence of Lewis’ arrest.

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CSP Tokunbo Abaniwonda, the Ipaja Divisional Police Officer, told Tobi that he misrepresented what happened in his tweet. She said that the police did not plan to detain Lewis but needed time to decide what to do next.

“The DPO called me and told me he (Lewis) admitted to being a Yahoo Boy. She said that that was ‘by the way,'” Tobi told FIJ.

“The DPO told me that the officers stopped Lewis and asked him to provide a means of identification and he said that he didn’t have any. She said that he was unable to remember his login details and the officers were impatient. They did not want to stand around just to log into an online portal on the road. The DPO said that the law allows police officers to use maximum force to arrest anyone or take anyone into their vehicle.”

When FIJ called Abaniwonda, she was in a meeting on Lewis’ arrest. Her personal assistant told FIJ that the officers were not trying to extort money from Lewis.

“The officers asked for the young man’s identification and he had nothing on him. He told the officers that he was a student of Ekiti State University (EKSU) but could not produce an ID card,” Abaniwonda’s assistant said.

“The young man told the officers that he recently gained admission to the university so his name could be found on the university’s online students’ portal. Our men took him to the police station so that they could check the students’ portal to confirm his identity.”