A young Nigerian social media influencer, Olumide Bakare, has given a first-hand accounts of his ordeal in the hands of some Policemen attached to the Ogudu Police Division of Lagos State.
Mr Bakare was returning from Ikeja on Monday, 13th July, 2020, when the rogue cops accosted the taxify vehicle he was in at the time. This happened in the Abiola Gardens area in the axis and the police officers went ahead to assault and exploit him.
After stopping the taxify vehicle he boarded, Bakare claimed that three policemen jumped into the vehicle and directed them to drive to the police station.
In Olumide's words: “When we got to the station, they took us to one corner with two wooden rooms. They collected my phones, my AirPods and ID card."
He further explained that his plea of innocence fell on deaf ears as the policemen kept checking his social media apps to find something to nail him, despite explaining to them that he is a social media influencer.
"They kept on searching my email, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp, and after asking questions, which I gave proper answers to, they saw a text about homosexuals in a group that I belonged to and they labelled me a gay," he added.
After accusing him of being gay, he was ordered to take off his shirt and was beaten with a pipe. They then forced him to write a statement, acknowledging that he has male clients, who pay him to have casual sex with them.
According to him, "They even listed some names for me. They told me to add amounts in front of the names and recorded me confessing at gunpoint."
When the cops saw his account balance, they allegedly demanded N1m from the young man; a popular tactics, used by police officers who are hellbent on extorting their victims. Olumide refused to part with such an amount.
In his words: "They then reduced it to N500,000 and threatened to send the video they made to the brands I work for, post it online and lock me up for days so that I would not be able to counter it."
Continuing, he said; “After begging them, they agreed to collect N260,000 from me and called a Point of Sale operator to come to the station and the money was withdrawn from my account."
Olumide's tale represents the plight of so many victims of Nigeria security apparatuses' brutality and extortion. He is not the first to be on the receiving end of this evil act and he won't be the last, as long as nothing is done to reform our security apparatuses.
Content created and supplied by: Jakeson (via Opera News )
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