Samuel Okemiri, an Abuja-based gospel singer, has shared his experience involving Adamu Idris, a police officer in Abuja, who extorted N50,000 from him without justification while three other officers turned a blind eye.

Okemiri said his ordeal unfolded on April 21 around 8 pm at AYA in Abuja as he was returning from an album launch. A group of police officers signalled to his Bolt driver to park before they began to grill him, he said.

Okemiri said that the officers asked him questions such as what he did and where he was coming from, which he answered promptly, but they were not satisfied and thus asked him to get off the vehicle, which he also did.

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Upon handing his phone to Idris, he asked him if it was an iPhone because it looked like one, but he answered in the negative. Idris then left the scene for another place, while Okemiri was left to face the other officers.

“After a long while, Idris returned and asked me, ‘So you don’t want to cooperate?’ I was shocked because there was no discussion before that. He then said, ‘Since you don’t want to cooperate, we will go to the police station.’ And he meant it,” Okemiri said.

“When I asked him what he meant by cooperation, he emphatically stated that I would have to bribe him. So, I asked what he wanted, and he said I would pay N100,000. The ridiculousness of the amount made me laugh, but this offended the officer, who then pushed me into the car.”

Okemiri said that he asked Idris why he would pay N100,000 if he wanted to bribe him as he had committed no crime, but that infuriated him further, and he asked the Bolt driver to head to the police station.

He said he did not budge but kept arguing with the officer, who was also insistent on the fee. At that point, Okemiri said, he was unsure of who Idris was because he was armed and the stench of alcohol was all over him.

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“To prevent a possible case of abuse of power, I asked him to drop his price to something reasonable, but he would not. He asked me to pay N85,000. After we haggled the price of my freedom, he capped it at N50,000. But there was an issue. My bank network was poor,” he said.

“Seeing that he had begun to order the Bolt driver again to head to the police station, I called a friend to send me what he could afford. The friend sent N46,000 to the officer’s OPay account. After he received it, the officer walked me to a nearby point of sale, where I withdrew N4,000 for him. It was already late, so I did all of that to go home.”

When FIJ called Josephine Adeh, the FCT police spokesperson, for comments on the matter, her line did not connect. A text sent at press time had not been responded to.