THE travails of Nigerians under the vice grip of law-enforcement agents and agencies have been an issue of concern over the years. Public disavowal of this sour relationship got to its crescendo when youths, gathering under the umbrella of EndSARS, in October 2020 literally froze Nigeria with a devastating protest that got bloody and contentious. Their initial grouse was that police officers and men under the highly obnoxious outfit, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), had constituted themselves into an oppressive, dictatorial and murderous outfit. Though certain ancillary demands of the protesters were not met, they, however, succeeded in getting the government to ban SARS whose odious trademark, unfortunately, has continued to haunt Nigerians.
A glimpse of this multiplication of the cells of the SARS cancer in the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) reared its ugly head recently. A Nigerian who was rushing to catch a flight at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport tasted the bile of the police. He took to the social media platform, X, to share details of this reprehensible action that is almost becoming the second nature of Nigerian security officers, via his handle, @TenmanNoble 1. According to him, the sum of ₦260,000 was extorted from him on his way to the International Airport in Lagos. This was his verbatim account, some kind of Save Our Soul (SOS) message to the NPF high command: “Your men are running an illegal operation at the road that leads to MM1 airport terminal. At 5:30am this morning, I was heading to the airport for my flight which was by 7:30a.m I was detained and my phone was in their (police) custody. They checked my messages and pictures and found nothing, then they proceeded to my notes and found a love letter which I wrote to my girlfriend many years ago. They then tagged me as a Yahoo boy and refused to give me back my phone. After a while they told me they could only release me on one condition. They got a nearby POS machine and asked me to withdraw 260k (N260,000). This was almost 7:00a.m I could have missed my flight but my flight was later delayed for an hour. I hate y’all so much.” In response, the Lagos State Police spokesperson CSP Benjamin Hundeyin, said: “Airport Police Command. Please call and keep us updated.”The official police complaint unit @PoliceNG_CRU also responded: “@TenmanNoble1, kindly check your DM and provide the required response so as to commence an investigation, thank you.”
The alleged victim of this police extortion was not only very explicit about what transpired between him and these execrable police officers, he provided receipts of the transaction. In his words, the cash transfer he made was transferred into an Opay account owned by one Tina Nneka Ojo and this happened on March 3, 2025. The Nigeria police’s image, which is indeed very bad among citizens of this country, must have taken yet another bashing on account of the narrative above. With all the information provided by the alleged victim of this police extortion, it should not be rocket science apprehending the extortionist policemen and the apparent POS accomplice. That nothing has been heard of the case since then is simply mind-boggling.
Not only is this story bad for the image of the police, Nigeria itself has vicariously been dragged into the mix as a country where all manner of shams and governmental abetment of corruption take place. If this allegation against the police officers is authenticated, it would mean that the force is not ready for the mantra of change which its high command mouths, and not the rhetoric of the Nigerian leadership will help. Globally, the image of the Nigeria police is so low. It is known to be one of the most compromised agencies and one of the most thriving havens of human rights violations in the world. Only recently, the Canadian government rejected the asylum claim by an ex-Nigerian policeman, saying that the NPF is corrupt and oppressive. The extortion claim by a Nigerian, with seemingly solid evidence, is bound to reify the position of the Canadian government and further drag the image of the Nigeria Police down the sewer. Unfortunately, this image will rub off on innocent Nigerians who, even a mile off, will stink in the eyes of the world.
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The choice of Airport Road by the roadblock-mounting policemen is a strategic extortionist tactic. This is because travelers know the grave implications of missing their flight. Thus, they will be naturally prepared to negotiate their way through whatever roadblock is placed in their way by extortionate policemen. Only God knows how many people have fallen prey to the extortionists and thereafter chosen to let sleeping dogs lie. When money is extorted from travelers in this manner, their travel becomes cumbersome and distressing and they are depressed. Many of those travelling abroad have very lean budgets that can barely tide them over and when that budget is depleted through extortion, they are thrown into turmoil. No human being should be made to carry such a contrived cross. Worse still, it is not unlikely that foreigners have also fallen victim of these lawbreakers, thus worsening the image of Nigeria and its government apparatus in the eyes of the world.
The point needs restating that the global rating of the Nigeria Police on the basis of corruption and general human rights abuse is terrible. We call on the police authorities to, as a matter of urgency, find out the alleged culprits in this present case and make a public example of them as a demonstration of the force’s disavowal of corruption.
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