Thread by @greysweaterdude

So a couple of police officers have been roving around Surulere today, picking up people and extorting them. They picked me up, took my phones and laptop, went through them and found nothing. Yet they kept insisting that I'm a criminal.

They saw an album art for an Avenged Sevenfold (a rock band) album on my phone and said that it's a cult I belong to and it's my cult's logo and that they've been arresting people from my non-existent cult. They saw a picture of a white girl imon my Instagram timeline and

insisted that she must be someone I'm defrauding and asking me how I know her and how much I collected from her.

They went through my phone gallery and were claiming that all the screenshots and pictures in my whatsapp media folder were evidence and they were going tk lock me up

Evidence of what? They did not say. They just kept inventing crimes upon crimes for me while still picking up and extorting other people. I noticed that while they had uniforms, they had no name tags on. It was clear that it's not their first time because they also went around

harrasing owners of beer parlors, bike guys, bars and anyone they could extort money from and these people are familiar with them. When I got tired of their bullshit, I agreed to settle them for crimes they were still looking. Initially they asked for 200k and I said I didn't

such an amount. They started acting pissed and insisting that they'll lock me up throw the keys away that there's nothing I can do. They then settled and asked how much I had. I said I had 20k across two accounts. After continuing their BS posturing, they agreed that they'd

accept the money and held on to my bag and phones while I went across to Access bank in their full view and withdrew the money and handed it to them after which they started acting caring and saying shit like that I don't look like a criminal, that I look gentle, that they want

to help me and that they didn't want to collect the money that it's just their colleagues (I was wondering which colleagues again) that were insisting on the money. I just collected my phones, laptop and bag and left

Some officers in the @PoliceNG force are fomenting trouble. They are creating a state where citizens hate and mistrust the police. Of the @PoliceNG does not do something about it, we'll soon find the police and citizens at opposite ends of a fight which is not what we need right

now. I know some of these activities are authorized by their superiors. Some the superiors have no knowledge. Some, their superiors aren't involved but know and look the other way.

This is exactly why #EndSARS trends regularly

@segalink @TheIgboWolf

UPDATE: I was with a friend when they picked me up and they pointed a gun at him and asked him to get out of the area. This was when they threw me in their van and drove away. My friend kept calling and texting but they didn't allow me pick his calls or reply his messages asking

if he should go get help and asking where I was taken to.

I'm just learning from my friend that a different group of officers, this time attached to the station at stadium picked him up a few minutes after while he was standing where I was picked up, hoping they would bring me

back. They took him to their station at stadium, detained him, accused him of crimes as well and were also picking up people. After he told them he's a student and they realized they couldn't get anything from him, they let him go but insisted that he should sign a release form

He refused on the grounds that he wasn't under arrest in the first place neither was he a criminal. They insisted thatbhe should sign it, basically stating that he was lawfully detained and was released by the police on their completion of a full investigation. They insisted that

if he didn't sign it, they would keep him under detention indefinitely. Eventually he had to sign it before they let him go.

A lot of Nigerian police officers are basically a street mafia in official uniform. They have no regard or respect for the citizens they were hired and

are paid to protect. Politicians don't care because, well, they would prefer that policemen are disturbing everyday citizens not harassing them. The fabric of our country is being ripped apart and activists are being arrested instead of errant officers. This is where our country

has come to. This is why people are leaving with no intention of returning.