The police in Rivers State have arrested some operatives for allegedly assaulting a man who refused to offer them N1 million bribe for an expired tinted permit.
“The police officers involved in the assault have been arrested and detained for disciplinary action,” Grace Iringe-Koko wrote on the command’s X handle on Thursday.
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“The commissioner of police has launched a full-scale investigation into the matter and has assigned an operative in charge of a monitoring team to handle the task,” Ms Iringe-Koko added.
Ms Iringe-Koko, a superintendent of police, tagged the Force Spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, on the tweet.
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The picture posted by Ms Iringe-Koko showed blood droplets on the victim from his forehead down to his cheek. She did not indicate when the incident occurred.
The incident
In a video of the incident posted on Facebook, a young man is seen shouting, “I didn’t do anything, Nigerian Police stopped me on the road.” Blood was dripping from the man’s head.
In another video, after treatment, the victim identified himself as Cletus Onyekachi. He said he was returning from a car wash around Igbo-Etche Road, off Eleme Junction, where police operatives that had mounted a roadblock stopped him. With him in the car were his younger brother, a friend, and a female, he said.
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The police stopped him and demanded to see his car particulars.
“He (police operative) flipped through the pages and said your tinted permit expired on 12 August, which is a few days ago. Are you aware? I said yes, sir, and told them I had gone for renewal, but the portal is crowded,” he said in a video, showing his bandaged head.
The police asked him to follow them to their station, but he told them it had not gotten to that level and asked the operatives what to do.
“He asked me to give him one meter,” and he (the victim) jokingly replied that he had no ruler to measure one meter for him.
“The operative asked him not to joke with them, whether he did not know what one meter means N1 million.
“I said, officer, for what, for a tinted permit. I killed a person,” and offered to give them N20,000.
“What would N20,000 do for us? Haven’t you seen how many of us are here?” the victim said in the video, claiming one of the operatives shouted at him.
According to him, he stepped away from the operatives and made a call, only for another member of the police team to sprint toward him and ask him who he was calling.
“You want to show us that you have contacts. We will deal with you; you are a criminal. Give me that phone,” the officer said, according to him, but he declined to give the operative his phone.
He told them he was trying to make a call to raise a million they demanded for the tinted permit
“He gave me two dirty slaps and brushed me. I fell on the floor. He (the operative) stood on my head, calling me a criminal.”
He said the operatives assaulted him, his brother, and the girl who was with them in the car.
“They (police) beat this girl, tore her clothes and handbag because they think she was videoing them.” He said the girl told them she was only answering a call.
He said the operatives repeatedly beat him with a stick until he became unconscious, to the point he said they abandoned him, handcuffed his brother, and left with him, only for them to later push him (his brother) out with the handcuffs.
One in many
Cases of police assaults on Nigerians have been on the rise despite disciplinary measures by the police authorities, including dismissal from service.
Less than a month ago, this newspaper reported how the commissioner of police in the neighboring Delta State ordered the arrest of operatives caught in a viral video assaulting a man in the state.
“The police officers have been identified and detained pending the commencement of their orderly room trial, while their team leader, who is an assistant superintendent of police, has been queried,” Bright Edafe, police spokesperson in the state, had said.
PREMIUM TIMES in 2023 reported how a police officer in the state shot dead a man for refusing to offer a N100 bribe, prompting a protest from angry youths, who carried the victim’s corpse in a rolling stretcher and marched through major roads in Asaba.
The police authority, after investigation, dismissed the officer from service.
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