Four police officers attached to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command have been detained for extorting N53,000 from the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr Musa Aliyu (SAN), during an illegal stop-and-search operation in Abuja.
The officers, who abandoned their duty posts and regrouped as an unauthorised checkpoint team in the Banex area of Wuse, allegedly stopped Aliyu without realising his identity, forced him to withdraw the money through a Point of Sale (POS) operator, made him bear the transaction charges, and shared the proceeds among themselves before fleeing the scene.
The FCT Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Sanusi, disclosed this on Monday while briefing journalists in Abuja, describing the officers as “thieves” who had no business wearing the police uniform.
“I must say here too that we have about four policemen in custody as we speak who successfully extorted somebody of high importance, unknown to them that this person is highly placed in society. In clear terms, they extorted the Chairman of the ICPC,” Sanusi said.
“They extorted him of N53,000. They took him to a POS, he withdrew the money, paid the charges, and they shared the money among themselves.”
According to the commissioner, investigations showed that the officers had formed a criminal gang after deserting their various divisions to carry out the illegal operation.
“They are a gang of criminals who left various divisions, clustered together, moved to Wuse Banex and created a checkpoint where they perpetrated this act before fleeing,” he said.
Sanusi said the command declared the officers wanted following the incident and arrested their gang leader, whose confession led to the arrest of the remaining members of the syndicate.
“We got all of them. We are going to make sure they are severely punished. Those that are going to be dismissed will definitely be dismissed,” he added.
The commissioner used the briefing to reiterate that the Inspector-General of Police had banned the indiscriminate search of citizens’ mobile phones by officers on patrol, and advised residents against complying with such unlawful demands.
“You cannot stop anybody on the road and ask the person to bring out his phone for search. If any policeman stops you and asks to search your phone, don’t agree. Call the police emergency lines, and we will ask them why,” Sanusi said.
He urged members of the public to promptly report cases of extortion and other forms of police misconduct, assuring them that culpable officers would be tracked down and sanctioned. #Securitynewsalert.com
