The Nigerian Police Force’s Plateau State Command has identified and detained the officers responsible for extorting certain journalists in Jos, the state capital, out of N100,000.
The arrested cops are members of the state’s anti-kidnapping section, according to CP Okoro Julius, the state police commissioner, who confirmed the development on Tuesday.
The complainants went to the command with the claim that on October 15, 2023, certain officers forced them to pay N500,000.
However, the police commissioner who intervened in the situation claimed that the command discovered during its inquiry that the policemen had really received N100,000 rather than N500,000 as several media sites had claimed.
According to CP Julius, the money has already been found and given back to the complainants.
The Plateau State Command has investigated the allegation, identified the suspects, and released the following statement to the media: “Following the allegation of extortion by operatives of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit (AKU) attached to the Plateau State Police Command reported by one Victor Ayeni of the Punch Newspaper on the 15th October 2023 with the headline, “Policemen invaded our estate, force us to pay N500,000- Jos residents,”
On October 16, 2023, CP Okoro J. Alawari, pcs, the commissioner of police for Plateau State Command, invited the complainants Audu Michael and Bitrus Zakka to his office, where the incompetent officers were paraded and interrogated in front of them. This was done to ensure that the matter received the urgent attention it merited.
But contrary to the Punch report, one of the complainants, Audu Michael, voluntarily disclosed to the Police that the Punch reporter, Victor Ayeni, misrepresented and exaggerated the fact by reporting that AKU operatives extorted the sum of Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000) instead of One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000), as claimed by the complainant, Mr. Audu Michael.
“The Police chief, who disapproves of the affected officers’ impolite behavior, assures Plateau citizens that his administration will not harbor unsavory characters in his Command. As a result, he gave the *OC Provost* of the Command the order to start the officers’ orderly room trial right now.
According to Alfred, the police commissioner has asked the public to always report police unethical behavior to the command’s Complaints Response Unit (CRU) and Police Public Relations Department for swift response.
