Chisom Okoro was home on Friday morning when he was called to show up at work. He and his colleagues would later be hauled to the Enugu State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) as part of a probe into missing items.

He works as a sales representative for Bata, a shoe manufacturing company on Ogui Road, Enugu. So, when some goods and money went missing, he and other colleagues became suspects.

The police first took Chisom to his apartment and effected a search. Chisom told FIJ that although he had no objections to the search as he had nothing to hide, the police came without a search warrant.

“They came to my house to search without a warrant,” he told FIJ. “When they did not find anything implicating, they invited me to write a statement.

READ ALSO: Lagos Policemen Led by DPO Basilia Onyejegbu Strip ‘Innocent’ Man in Public

“I went to their station with them to write the statement, and when I finished, I told them I was done and wanted to go. I said I would be around whenever they wanted me, but they refused to let me go.

“The police then demanded I give them ₦100,000 before they would let me go. The time was already past 7 pm, and it was getting late, so I decided to tweet a call for help.”

At 7:14 pm, Chisom tweeted, saying, “I have been illegally detained at the State CID, Enugu, the one at Okpara Avenue. They are asking me to pay ₦100,000 for bail. They said I would sleep here till Monday, please I need help.”

Daniel Ndukwe, Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Enugu State Police Command, intervened, and the police released Chisom later that night.

Although Ndukwe said in a public statement that the police let Chisom go without paying anything, when FIJ asked him if the police made the demand in the first place, he did not comment.

Ojukwu is a reporter with FIJ in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.