Three months after, police fail to act on officers caught extorting motorists

The Nigeria Police are yet to take definite action three months after CAMPUS REPORTER reported how two of their officers were caught on camera extorting motorists along Ijebu Ode-Ibadan Road in Ogun State.

The two officers, whose badge identified them as Oyewole Afolabi and Eniola Olaiya, were caught by our correspondent collecting bribe from a bus driver who was conveying passengers to Ibadan from Ajah, Lagos State, on May 13.

The officers were arbitrarily imposing demands on motorists whose vehicle licence or insurance papers were outdated or missing. Where all vehicle and driving credentials were intact, they found other ways of harassing and extorting road users.

When our correspondent forwarded multimedia evidence of the officers’ misconduct to Abayomi Shogunle, head of police complaints unit in Abuja, he promised to examine the images and issued a tracking number (PCRRU915475).

However, three months after the complaint was made and a tracking number issued, the police are yet to take any definite action.

When the reporter contacted the complaint unit on May 17, an officer who spoke with our correspondent said it was under investigation.

“This very incident is still under investigation. We are still investigating it. You can call us tomorrow. Thank you.”

On May 23, when the reporter called the complaint unit again to track the case, he was informed by the officer who answered the call that the unit engineer was working on the system and promised to get back. He failed to do so.

He said: “Our engineer is working on our system and that’s why we delayed you. We are going to call you back. We are going to get back to you soon.”

When contacted again on June 11, he was informed that the ‘last efforts’ made on the complaint were carried out on May 19.

“Our detective unit has been informed to look into the matter but I did not see their comment to know if they have looked into the matter or not,” an officer said. “The last comment on the system was on the 19th of May. I will advise that you call for further update so that I will contact our detectives”.

On August 2, the reporter was informed that the case had been transferred to IGP X-Squad.

“The case has been transferred to IGP X-SQUAD. You need to go IGP X-Squad for update. We don’t have any update anymore.”

When the IGP X-SQUAD was contacted, our reporter was asked to send a text message which he did that same day.

However, when the IGP X-SQUAD was contacted again earlier on Wednesday to know the update on the matter, a text message was requested for again.

“Yes, actually signal was sent to our office at headquarters to do something about it. But send text message again.”

Meanwhile, all efforts to get the head of police complaint unit in Abuja, Mr Shogunle, were unsuccessful as he refused to answer several calls made to him. He also did not respond to a text message.