Lagos CP orders removal of DPO over extortion, commences orderly room trial

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In Lagos State, a Divisional Police Officer, DPO, has been relieved of his duty alongside some of his subordinates over alleged extortion.

The DPO whose name has remained undisclosed but was assigned to the Meiran Police Station in Lagos State, embraced his fate following an order by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa on Wednesday.

The Police commissioner had ordered the removal of the Divisional Police Officer over charges of extortion levelled against him and some police officers whose orderly room trial was reported to have commenced at the commands’ headquarter in Ikeja, the state capital.

Trouble began for the police officers after an engineer, Ibrahim Saliu, who spoke with journalists claimed some policemen attached to the Meiran Police Station in Lagos State extorted N200,000 from him on Saturday.

Saliu, had claimed that the officers, alongside the station’s DPO, threatened him and his brother with jail time should they fail to provide receipts for the phones seen with Saliu’s brother.

He said, “The DPO took the iPhones, removed the warranty stickers, and declared that my brother and I are thieves and armed robbers.

“The next thing I heard was the DPO giving them an order to detain us and that we would be locked up for stealing and armed robbery. We were surprised that we started begging.”

Saliu disclosed that he was asked to make a N500,000 payment to secure their freedom. They agreed to N200,000, paid in cash per the officers’ order.

Confirming the incident Wednesday, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, via a post on the Police Command’s official X (formerly Twitter) account disclosed that the CP Lagos has ordered the immediate removal of the Meiran Police Station DPO.

Hundeyin wrote, “CP Idowu Owohunwa has ordered the immediate removal of DPO Meiran for leadership dereliction and supervisory ineptitude.

“Meanwhile, all the officers involved have been identified and are currently at the Command headquarters where their orderly room trial has commenced.”

Police extortion of civilians has presented itself a crime so familiar to inhabitants of the country’s corruption-ridden cities and towns that it has seemingly become a norm.

Following the End Sars protest in 2020 which raised concerns internationally, the then Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Abubakar Adamu issued a directive that prohibits Police officers from scrolling through the phones of young individuals during patrol but the reverse has been the case.

Across the country, there is still widespread practice of Police brutality, undue harassment and extortion and unwarranted arrests being made by men of the Police Force, according to a source who spoke with Val9ja News on condition of anonymity.

The source who narrated his ordeal claimed that he alongside other young men were arrested by some men of the Nigerian Police Force at a restaurant where he had gone to eat in Makurdi, the Benue state capital, leaving the food he bought unfinished and had to pay N20,000 to the Police before he was released.

According to the source, a crop of boys at the restaurant immediately took to their hills at the sight of the Police but he and a few others who remained yet, were all arrested for what they described as “a crime they did not commit.”