Precious Igbonwelundu
WHEN ex-sports journalist Yomi Kuku stepped out for a drink at a joint in Ikeja on Friday night, he did not know that he would end up locked in a cell at the Area F Police Command with 22 other persons including six young women and three teenagers.
Kuku’s Friday night good time at Sidewall Bar along the busy Obafemi Awolowo Road was cut short by “punches” and “strangulation bid” by armed policemen numbering about 10 who stormed the place in a Black Maria belonging to the Lagos State Taskforce on the Environment.
Like Kuku, Romoke Oyin, an undergraduate student in one of the southwest universities who was in Lagos with some of her friends for a birthday party in Ikeja was also bundled by the men who locked her and her female friends with the men in a cell without any statement obtained until the Police Commissioner Zubairu Muazu came to their rescue on Saturday morning.
Three teenagers, Monday, Udeme and Toba were also not spared as they were flagged down in a taxi they were riding by three policemen operating in a commercial bus and slapped, pushed them into the bus without any explanation as to the offence they committed.
Narrating their ordeal to The Nation on Monday, the victims said they were still in shock over the encounter wondering why the policemen would go about town rounding up innocent people.
Kuku said his travails started around 11:30pm when he heard screams outside the bar he had gone for a beer or two, adding that two of the 26 victims were released after allegedly paying N15,000 each while the third, an Air Force officer was freed following a heated altercation between personnel of the Air Force who stormed the station, and their captors.
What baffled him the more, he said, were subtle messages passed by the policemen to him to negotiate his freedom like the other men did.
“Oga, this is Nigeria. You know what to do in order to be released. It is not about you being a member of Police Badminton club. Even if you be officer, you go drop,” Kuku said the cops told him.
Giving a rundown of his experience, he said: “I was at Sidewalk Bar on Obafemi Awolowo way Ikeja. I was seated and ordered for a drink. I barely took two sips when I started hearing screams and noises. I looked around and someone rushed into the bar to inform that the Nigeria Police are forcefully pulling out vehicle number plates.
“So, I got to my car and met an individual in mufti taking off my car plate and I asked why he was doing that? He asked if I owned the car, I said yes.
He immediately ordered four policemen to arrest me. They assaulted me before throwing me into a waiting Black Maria vehicle despite telling them that they should allow me identify myself.
“I was the first person to be arrested and within minutes, the vehicle was filled up. I reached out to Mr Gboyega Àkasíl?`, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS to Governor Babjide Sanwo-Olu). I told him the operation to arrest was being done by the Lagos State Taskforce as the team came with the vehicle we were being held in.
“He later called me back that the Taskforce had nothing to do with it, that the Lagos State Police Command Area F, only solicited the use of the Black Maria. He promised to reach out to the Taskforce. Immediately he saw my WhatsApp message, he replied me within seconds. Within minutes, we were taken to Area F.
“There we were joined by others all of us 26 in number arrested and violated by men of the Nigeria Police Area F Including three young boys who told me they are 16-year-olds.
Not less than 10 patrol vehicles fully armed with rifles and pistols and small arms like jackknives.
“They came in patrol cars. Please note that they arrested 26 of us. One Air Force man was freed after a heated argument in the station which brought many Air Force personnel to the Area F command.
“The Airforce officer was not taken in. The officer coordinating our detention said he was detaining us because of the belligerence of the Airforce officer. When we filed into the cell, a policeman came to call out two men while being processed in and the two men were freed.
“So, only 23 of us were detained from 11:40pm. They brought in another group of majorly young people at 5am. Some of them ladies in hijab who were sleeping in their homes.
About six girls arrested were detained together with us men in the same cell. Also with a man with mental health issue, who apparently has been in detention for days.
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“When they were locking the girls with us, we told them to leave the girls at the counter instead of putting them in the same cell with us but they refused to adhere.
“We were detained from 11:40pm on Friday night until 8am Saturday morning when the Commissioner of Police Zubairu Muazu came to release us all.
Before he released us, he asked them who authorised our detention, they could not give an answer. He asked them to produce detention order but they showed him a plain paper where all our names were written.
“He asked them where they wrote the names of all detainees. No one could give an answer. He was visibly angry and ordered our immediate release. I have just been imagining what would have happened to us if the Police Commissioner had not come there himself to free us.
“So, this is what policemen do to Nigerians? They never asked anyone to identify themselves. Some of us were arrested at the bar, others were just innocent people going about their businesses that night. Nothing incriminating was found on them and yet, they just bundled everyone to the cell?
“Those policemen should be sanctioned. I am already in touch with the Police Complaint Response Unit (PCRU). They have been taking with me since Saturday and I have said I can identify five of the policemen.
“I was told it is a normal thing they do there. A similar thing happened to my cousin three weeks ago in the same area. He was attending a meeting just opposite where I was arrested. They are very crude and I will be seeking redress,” he said.
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