Published 3rd Apr, 2022

By Abdullah Tijani

Olusegun Adetona and Bukola Adeniran, workers at WorldCoin, a non-governmental organisation registered in Nigeria as TOKENWEB Ltd., have accused security officials attached to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) of conniving with police officers to extort them.

On Friday, January 31, the duo entered UNILAG to educate students on the opportunities their company offers, and they were directed to an office in the school to get permission.

The official they met in the office gave them approval. But while they were inviting students, the security men in the school interrupted them.

“They asked us to follow them to their security post. On getting there, they threw us behind their counter,” Adetona said.

“They collected our phones immediately, before querying us about our purpose in the university. “We told them we were given permission. We told them to follow us to the woman who permitted us but they refused. They said since we were not given a written permission, we were criminals.”

Adetona and his partner were given a paper to write their statements, but they could not write because the security officers insisted that they write what was being dictated to them.

“We told them we would only write what had happened and not what they were telling us.”

Angered by their defiance, the security men invited police officers to take them into custody.

“I would later discover that they were working in cahoots with the police,” he said.

After writing statements at Sabo Yaba Police Station, the officer in charge told the security men from UNILAG that Adetona and his partner had no case to answer. But the security men were adamant.

“When the security man insisted that we were criminals, I requested that they allow us to call the woman that gave us the permission. The policemen called the woman and put the phone on speaker. Everybody heard the woman tell them she gave us permission.

“I was relieved, thinking it had ended, but I was surprised when the police asked us to go to a particular office occupied by an officer who, I believe, is the top officer in the police station.”

Inside the office, they narrated what had happened and left the room for the inspector and the high-ranking officer. When the inspector returned, Adetona and his partner were stripped.

“Before they threw us into the cell, they gave us one last chance to call someone to come and bail us. I was like ‘when we have no case, are we supposed to be seeking bail?'” said Adetona.

“After putting us in the cell, they didn’t allow us to make a call until I started shouting. They allowed me to call our boss, who is not a Nigerian. He had to contact someone else in Lagos to bail us out.

“When the man our boss sent arrived the following day, they took us out from the cell to come and sign the bail document. Inside the form, we saw that they were not supposed to collect anything from us, but we saw them when they collected N100,000 from the man.”

Speaking with FIJ, Liadi Muhammad, the policeman who took statements from Adetona and his partner, claimed to have no knowledge of the case.

“I’m a constable,” he said. “My job is to take statements. All the things you are saying are beyond my power.”

However, Adetona claimed that though the officer is indeed like an errand boy in the station, he lacks the justification to exonerate himself from what was done to them.

“When we were released the following day, the officer (Muhammad) told us to take it easy and just forget about it. He was behaving like the good man among them, but to me, he is part of them,” Adetona said.

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