Ibitoye Olamide, a student of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Ondo State, has narrated how an officer of the Nigeria Police Force extorted N40,000 from him after threatening to kill him.
Olamide had boarded a bus traveling to Akure from Okene, Kogi State, on Tuesday when six police officers stopped the bus at Magongo area of the state. He said one of the officers searched him and found N21,600 on him, then proceeded to look through his messages and phone transactions.
“When he asked for my occupation, I told him I am a student and I also run a POS service. He called me a liar and threatened to slap me, despite having my school ID card,” Olamide told FIJ.
The officer then took Olamide to a bush and asked him to “cooperate”, else he would use a taser on him.
“He said his money was N100,000. When I told him I had only N21,600 on me, he said I should get the money through other means. He told me to call all my contacts, else he would shoot me and nothing would happen.”
Olamide called some of his contacts and he was able to raise N20,000. The officer instructed him to transfer the money to a UBA account belonging to a certain ‘Jonathan Yusuf Friday’.
“Immediately I got the alert, he called someone and told the person to send him ‘that thing’, in Yoruba. The person sent him an account number which I transferred the money to.
“He also collected 20,000 from the cash I had with me. He left me with only N1,600 and asked me to go home with that”.
When asked if he got any of the officer’s identity, Olamide told FIJ “they all wore police uniforms but I couldn’t see the name on the officer’s uniform because it was late and they didn’t use any torch”.
When FIJ reached out to Edward Egbuka, the Kogi State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), he promised to investigate the matter.
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