Tina Amanda
The Rivers State Police command has arrested and detained four Police Officers attached to Puff Adder tactical unit who were alleged to have extorted the sum of two hundred and four thousand (204,000) naira from one Kinsley Dike, a two hundred level Student of Ignatius Ajuru University.
Their arrest followed an order by the Commissioner of Police, CP Friday Eboka, shortly after members of the Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability Campaign led the student to the office of the Commissioner of Police, CP Eboka Friday on Monday 7 March, 2022, to lodge a formal compliant on the matter.
A Lawyer with the Rights Group, Charles Obiorah Edward, who spoke on the incident commended CP Eboka for the step he took on the matter .
Edward further urged the Police to ensure thorough investigation into the matter, arraign and prosecute any of the officer found culpable to serve as detterent to other Police Officers.
Meanwhile, the victim, Dike, in an interview with Journalists narrated that he was on his way home last Friday at about 10pm in a bolt when the Policemen stopped him and brought him down from the vehicle.
According to him, after a search was conducted on him and his fellow student, the Police men still took them to their station in Aluu despite the fact that nothing was found on them.
He disclosed that at the station, the Police officers ordered him to remove the code on his phone and went through the phone and found nothing.
Dike revealed that the Police officers detained them in the cell that Friday night and brought them out on Saturday morning 5 March, 2022, ordering them with threats to write statement that they are internet fraudsters.
The student explained that out of fear of being killed, they wrote that they were internet fraudsters after which the Police officers gave them an account number which they transferred 204,000 naira to the account before they were released on Saturday.
As at press time, the accused Police Officers are being detained at State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), PortHarcourt while the money allegedly extorted by the Police Officers from the student has been recovered.
