Published 28th Mar, 2022

By Emmanuel Uti

Ayomikun Alabi, a serving corps member in Osun State, has detailed how police officers stationed on Ibadan-Ife Road extorted N17,000 from him.

Alabi told FIJ that the police officers stopped the bus he boarded at about 5 pm on Sunday and asked all the male passengers to alight and give themselves up for a search.

He said after the police searched him, they asked to check his bag. They found his camera while searching through his bag and concluded that it was stolen.

Alabi said he immediately tendered the receipt of the camera to the officers. They then asked him about his profession, and he identified himself as a corps member. But the officers asked what a corps member was doing with a camera.

“I also told them I was a photographer. Immediately, they asked the driver to leave me behind. At first, the driver insisted he would not leave me behind, but they advised him to do so or they would arrest him,” he said.

“After the driver left, they seized my phone for about 30 minutes. After some time, one of them opened my Facebook Messenger and shouted, “I said it”. He said I was a fraudster. Before I could say anything in defence, they slapped me twice.”

Alabi asked them to prove he was a fraudster, but the officers asked him to avoid them. He said he followed the officers to their police station after seeing how they extorted money, up to N500,000 in some cases, from people.

Later, he said, one officer asked him to pay N70,000, but he said he had no money. The officers then demanded that he call his parents to send him money, but he refused.

“They said they were closing for the day and that I should answer them. I informed them that the only way I could pay them was if the federal government paid my allowance right away. They dragged me by the clothes and slapped me. They said the statement was a stupid one,” he said.

Alabi said the officers took him to a PoS, where he transferred N17,000 to the vendor. After receiving the money, Alabi said, the officers left him.

Meanwhile, the officers could have arrested two internet fraudsters on the bus with Alabi.

“They checked the phone belonging to the duo before me, and they knew they were fraudsters. They asked them why they were involved in a Facebook romance scam, and the boys said they did it to eat,” he said.

“The police boss told them to let them go because they were upcoming fraudsters. They knew they could not tax those guys because a glance at them showed they did not have money.”

When FIJ called Yemisi Opalola, Osun State Police Public Relations Officer, she did not answer her calls. At press time, she had not responded to a text sent to her phone.

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