After assaulting wrongfully arrested furniture maker, Lagos police collect 60,000 naira from him
Adeyanju Ayodeji, a Lagos-based Twitter user and furniture maker, recounted how he lost 60,000 naira to police officers who wrongly arrested him on April 9.
In a series of tweets, Adeyanju said he was cycling towards the command in Ipaja, Lagos State when officers stopped his bike at a checkpoint on the Ikola Bridge.
“They were not in uniform nor were they using the official police vehicle. They used a commercial minibus and ordered my man on a bicycle to park. As soon as he did, three policemen surrounded me and pointed guns at me. My heart flew out of my body,” he wrote.
Ayodeji said they dragged him onto their bus and demanded he hand over his phones. He said one of the officers slapped him while he was still trying to get his phone out of his pocket.
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“I never argued with them or said anything. Still, I was slapped. They started calling me a “Yahoo boy” and a fraudster. They have sworn to deal with me. When I tried to show them evidence on my phone that I was really a furniture maker, they slapped me again. They said I was dressing up,” Ayodeji said.
He said the officers told him not to look at their faces but at their feet. He explained that they drove him through Ipaja, searched his phone and saw a credit notification he received while on the bike.
“When they saw the alert, they asked me to pay 200,000 naira to be released. They became friends and started negotiating. I told them the money was from a client for the buying materials. They drove me to the station after saying that,” he wrote.
Ayodeji said he was taken to the back of the station’s main building. He revealed that he had seen many young guys who were apparently arrested the same way he was.
“They took me into a room and asked me to sit down. They didn’t ask me to write a statement. They took over the negotiation and asked for the amount I was willing to pay. I insisted that the money with me was for materials. They threatened to lock me in the cell and also told me there were 14 other guys in the cell,” he said.
“I was scared when they showed the condition of the boys in the cell. They were in a very deplorable state. They also said there had been a murder case in the community before my arrest. They said that I could be put in the place of the murderer.
Ayodeji said another policeman came into the room and asked what his offense was. He said his captors lied against him and said he insulted them and dragged guns with them. Negotiations resumed after the departure of the other officer.
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“They asked me to pay 100,000 naira. I told them to collect 60,000 naira as that was what I could afford. They asked me to use the ATM (ATM) to withdraw but I didn’t have my ATM card with me. They provided a Zenith Bank account number and transferred the money to them,” he said.
Ayodeji said the officers called the owner of the account he sent the money to for confirmation. They then took him out of the police station, released him and handed him his phone.
The IFJ made several calls to Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, but he did not answer them. He also had not responded to a text message sent to him at press time.