Description

The police in Rivers State, South-south Nigeria, say they have arrested some officers who allegedly kidnapped and extorted a resident in Port Harcourt.

How it happened
On 8 September, a social media user, Uche Okoye, uploaded a video clip of a young man on his X handle (formerly Twitter).

The young man, simply identified as ‘Kay Persona,’ was heard in the clip narrating how some police officers allegedly kidnapped, locked him up in a police cell and forced him to pay a sum of money before being released.

Narrating his experience in the hands of the officers, Mr Persona man said the officers, who were armed and dressed in ash and blue police camouflage, had intercepted a bolt vehicle he was riding in on a Saturday in September.

The young man said the incident happened around Rumuokwuta in Port Harcourt, shortly after they had passed a police checkpoint without being stopped.
He said the officers, numbering about 10, arrived in a pickup van and asked him to come down from the vehicle, but immediately dragged him down.

“It was utterly embarrassing because I felt like a criminal,” he said.

Some of the officers, according to him, immediately jumped into his vehicle and asked his driver to follow their van to their facility without informing him of his offence or responding to his enquiries.
He tried to make a phone call but was stopped by the officers, which prompted him to ask the bolt driver to stop the vehicle.

He said one of the officers informed him that the vehicle was under surveillance and that they had been tracking it.

He tried to make a phone call but was stopped by the officers, which prompted him to ask the bolt driver to stop the vehicle.

He said one of the officers informed him that the vehicle was under surveillance and that they had been tracking it.

He tried to make a phone call but was stopped by the officers, which prompted him to ask the bolt driver to stop the vehicle.

He said one of the officers informed him that the vehicle was under surveillance and that they had been tracking it.

But he declined. The officers later took him into their facility.

“At the end of the day, I got into the station. There was no processing (documentation) at the counter. We went straight into an office and they told me to take off my jewellery and my wristwatch,” he said.

Aside from him, there were other boys also picked up by the officers from different locations in the area.