The Lagos State Police Command has initiated the trial of four officers accused of extorting N1 million from three National Youth Service Corps members in the Surulere area.
The officers, reportedly attached to the Area C Police Command in Surulere, allegedly carried out the extortion after stopping the corps members along the Surulere expressway.
The incident came to public attention on Thursday evening when social media user, Oluyemi Fasipe, shared details on X.
According to his post, the officers accosted the corps members, conducted a search, and later escorted them to the Area C Police Station, where the extortion allegedly took place.
In his post, Fasipe revealed, “Officers today, in Surulere extorted one million naira from three corps members. They were threatened with firearms, kidnapped, and taken to the Kafaru Oluwole Tinubu House, Area C Police Command of the @LagosPoliceNG where they were robbed. Their offence was the absence of a physical copy of a driver’s license.”
Fasipe pointed out that the officer who collected the money was dressed in plain clothes, further fueling suspicion about the legality of the actions.
“According to the victims, the officer in mufti is the one who collected the money (their boss),” he noted in a follow-up post accompanied by videos.
In one of the videos recorded by the corps members, a policeman is heard requesting the driver’s license of the corps member who was operating the vehicle.
The corps member responded, “I’m renewing it,” leading to a dispute, as the officers insisted on seeing a physical paper version of the license.
As the argument intensified, the police allegedly removed the vehicle’s license plates. During the confrontation, one officer was overheard shouting, “If you do anyhow, I will molest you.”
In a voice note obtained by journalists, one of the corps members who was extorted recounted how the situation unfolded.
He stated that the police had coerced them into paying N200,000 each, beginning by seizing his phone and searching through his personal messages and pictures.
“They said I should log into my NYSC portal. While trying to log in, one snatched my phone. They started going through messages and pictures. They asked me where I got the money for a car. I told them it’s my mum’s car. Then, they said I should give them N10 million.”
Describing the ordeal further, he added, “I said I didn’t have, but I could afford N50,000. They refused. I begged him as he was still searching my phone. When he went through my account and saw N116,000, I told him I could give them N100,000 but he refused and said I should call people to send me money. He heard me talking to my girlfriend on the phone to send me N200,000. Fortunately, my family already knew I was with the police because I called my mummy immediately the incident occurred, and she had called my girlfriend. So, when I asked my girlfriend for N200,000, she said she didn’t have it.”
The officer’s extortion didn’t stop with one individual. They also found about N200,000 on another corps member’s phone and demanded it.
The corps member was forced to give his ATM card, enabling the officer to withdraw the sum. Additionally, the police allegedly forced one of them to transfer Bitcoin worth $842.
Reacting to the public outrage, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, initially confirmed that the officers involved had been identified and were under interrogation.
By Friday evening, Hundeyin provided an update, stating that the accused officers had been summoned and their trial had officially begun.
