Two siblings, Daniel and James Ogbonna, have accused officers attached to the Makinde Police Station in Oshodi, Lagos State, of detaining them illegally and also forcing them to bail themselves with the sum of N20,000.
The brothers, who spoke to TheNigerian Metro on Monday, said the incident happened on Thursday.
Daniel told our correspondent that before the arrest, he had received calls from strange numbers on Wednesday, creating suspicion about the activities of fraudsters.
He further disclosed that he received another call on Thursday morning from an officer from the Makinde station who claimed someone reported him to the police.
While stating that he thought the call was also from a fraudster, Daniel, who is a gospel artiste with a popular Pentecostal church, said he ignored the call.
He said a team of policemen from the station later tracked their phone numbers, visited their church and arrested his brother.
He said, “I got a call from some people on Wednesday who asked me certain questions. The first person said he was a government official and was calling to do a survey on the fuel subsidy. The second person said they wanted me to perform at a wedding ceremony. Another person called the same day and gave me an address as the venue of the event. That was when I suspected they were fraudsters.
“When I got another call on Thursday morning inviting me to the Makinde police station, I ignored the invitation because I thought they were fraudsters. It was the same evening that they came to arrest my brother after tracking him to the church where he had gone for programme.”
Daniel said when he visited the station to check why his brother was arrested, the police officers told him that they were looking for a woman who attended his church.
He added that the officers alleged that the suspect was involved in an admission scam and that they could only trace her through them.
He said, “I took the policemen to the church and they told our pastors that they would release us once they located the lady. The woman finally came around 11pm at the station and explained her part of the story. And after that, the police refused to release us. They said we would sleep in the cell for initially ignoring their invitation. Even the woman they had an issue with wondered why they still kept us since she already showed up. That was how they made us to sleep in the cell till the following morning.”
The brothers alleged that the police at the station instead of allowing them to leave in the morning collected N20,000 before releasing them.
When contacted on Tuesday, the DPO of the station, CSP Akaninyene Etuk, said the officers were deployed from the Kano State Police Command from where they tracked the contact.
He also denied knowledge of the detention and extortion.
He said, “The officers were not my personnel here. They came from Kano State to arrest somebody concerning the issue of fraud. We only assisted them so I don’t know if such a thing happened. I am not aware. I will have to call those who assisted them. You can tell both of them to come and meet me tomorrow (Wednesday). By then, I would have found out what transpired.”
Officers attached to the police station have been repeatedly accused of raiding residents in the community and ending up locking them up on trumped-up charges.
TheNigerian Metro reports that a commercial bus driver, Adewale Oseni, was allegedly brutalised by a police officer identified simply as Supol Akeem attached to the Makinde Police Station.
Oseni told TheNigerian Metro that he was returning from a food vendor where he had gone to purchase food for his three children on July 14 at about 10 pm when the officer accosted him.
He said efforts to show him the food he bought and also appeal to him were ignored by the police officer also said to be identified as Spider.
The widower claimed that Akeem thereafter assaulted him with an iron baseball baton on the spot.
Speaking in the same vein, James said he was kept in the cell with a victim of a similar police raid.
He said, “I met a guy sleeping in the cell where they kept us. The boy said he was going to get food with his friend around 10 pm when the police approached him and after identifying himself, the police officers took him to the station. He said that was how they got there. It was the following morning that he was released on bail without any offence.”
The Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, could not be reached as calls made to him were not responded to. A text message sent to him had yet to be replied to as of the time this report was filed.
