The Rivers State Police Command has arrested and detained four police officers attached to its Puff Adder Tactical Unit for alleged extortion of about N200,000 from a 200-level student of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Rivers State, Kingsley Dike.
Their arrest followed a directive 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 CP to lodge a formal complaint on the matter.
Speaking at the meeting, Dike explained that he was in a vehicle on his way home last Friday at about 10 pm when some policemen stopped and searched him and his colleague and later took them to their base in the Aluu community even after “nothing was found” on them.
Dike said at the station the “police officers ordered him to remove the code” on his phone and later threw them in the cell.
He said they were brought out on Saturday morning and were directed to write a statement indicting themselves as “internet fraudsters”, which they complied with, out of fear of being killed.
The students explained the officers thereafter gave them “an account number” where they transferred the sum of N200,000 before they were released.
Speaking on the development, a legal representative of the rights group, Charles Obiorah-Edward, commended the Commissioner of Police for the step taken on the matter and further urged the police to ensure “a thorough investigation into the matter”.
Meanwhile, the accused police officers are being detained at State Criminal Investigation Department while the money allegedly extorted from the student has been recovered.
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