The rise in police extortion cases

RECENTLY, the Lagos State Command of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) arrested two police officers for extorting the sum of N400,000 from a resident in the Antony area of the state. The state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, who gave this update via his Twitter handle, apologised on behalf of the force for the wrongdoing by the erring police personnel. The action followed the complaint by a Twitter user simply identified as Ken, who alleged that policemen who had accosted him in the Antony area forced him to open his bank’s mobile app, and dragged him to a POS terminal where the illegal withdrawal was made from his account. In another incident in March this year, some errant policemen attached to the Osun State Command were forced to return the money they had extorted from students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife. According to the chairman, National Association of University Students (NANS), Osun State chapter, Eruobami Ayobami, the policemen had invaded the Modomo area in Ile-Ife at about 6 a.m. on March 11 and fleeced some students in the community. The association however paid a courtesy visit to the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Olawale Olokode, urging the command to get rid of the bad eggs within the force.

Again in  March, some police officers allegedly abducted a Nigerian music producer in Lagos and forced him to wire N1.2 million to them. The victim, Emmanuel Chibuze, was said to be in an Uber car when the officers flagged down the car at Alapere, Lagos.  According to Mr. Harrison Gwamnishu, a human rights activist who publicised the incident on Facebook, Chibuze was forced to transfer the sum through a POS agent who apparently was part of the extortion clique. He was neither taken to a police station nor asked to write a statement, having not been accused of any crime. In reaction, the police spokesperson said that the command was already on the case.  It stated that the officers alleged to have been involved in the extortion had been identified, and the victim invited to the police station. There was also the case of an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) who was, in April, picked up in Lagos for extorting the sum of N50,000 from a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The cases are legion.

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The police headquarters is of course fully aware of the rising cases of extortion by its officers and men. In April, the acting Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, indicated that the force would begin eliminating cases of police extortion by holding Divisional Police Officers and commanders responsible for the actions of officers in their units. The move, he said, was part of measures being put in place by the force to protect Nigerians and eradicate cases of extortion and harassment of citizens by the police.  Announcing the measure on his Twitter page, Adejobi noted that the Usman Baba-led NPF would work assiduously to reposition the force and regain the trust of Nigerians. He assured that through the new intervention, the force would be able to bridge the noticeable leadership gap within it and restore sanity to its operations.

It is indeed distressing that in spite of the awful and horrendous social, economic and political conditions in which they live, Nigerians are constantly forced to part with their hard-earned money by law enforcement agents paid to serve and protect them.  The situation becomes more confounding when the fact is taken into consideration that unlike in the past when policemen virtually operated with impunity, the rise of an active social media community has made it easy to track and hunt down corrupt police officers. And while some commands of the force may be accused of not responding swiftly to cases of alleged extortion, the Lagos State command has been an exemption, treating officers and men implicated in extortion in accordance with the service rules and giving the public hope that the era of police impunity is gone for good. Yet, the problem has persisted. The truth is that not all victims utilise the social media or even the traditional police stations to seek redress following their extortion by policemen and, certainly, not all the policemen involved in the criminal act are held accountable for their actions. Many are browbeaten and are too afraid to lodge any complaint, while others seem to be of the belief that they can never get justice even if they lodge a complaint.

If anything, the fact that the incidence of extortion by policemen is getting worse not too long after the #EndSARS crisis is unnerving. It shows that the bad eggs in the force are moved neither by history nor by the prospect of being caught and punished by the force and, subsequently, the court of law. Indeed, it is apposite to ask how police officers and (wo)men can serve and protect Nigerians with integrity when they are thieves. Such bad eggs do not see the irony in arresting and clamping citizens accused of theft in police cells. Such people are their colleagues in crime and the only difference is that they are civilians who do not have the power of coercion. As a matter of fact, when looked at critically, the act of extorting money from citizens while armed furnishes the essential ingredients of armed robbery. In this kind of situation, the solution lies in public enlightenment campaigns geared towards assuring citizens of their rights under the law and the preparedness of the police headquarters to listen to and act decisively on their complaints, including those made anonymously, at least in the first instance, and swift treatment and prosecution of cases reported to the police authorities. That way, Nigerians would become much more confident in the ability and readiness of the force to do justice to their complaints.

We commend the timely response of the Lagos State Police command to outcries on social media, but it apparently needs to do more. Needless to say, the policemen who have been arrested should be prosecuted diligently and fairly.