A motorcyclist in Sokoto town, the Sokoto State capital, Yusuf Danlami, has narrated how some officers of the Nigeria Police Force attached to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) physically assaulted and extorted money from him.
Danlami told SaharaReporters that the incident happened on Friday night at around 11pm while he was going to drop off his friend at a nearby location around his area.
Narrating the incident to SaharaReporters on Saturday, Danlami said that he was first stopped by members of a local vigilante group known as Salami but he tried to explain to one of the vigilante members he knew but the vigilante refused to listen to him and called the police officers who forcefully dragged him to where they stationed their vehicle and handed him over to their boss.
According to him, his attempts to explain to the police boss whose identity he could not confirm, failed as, rather than listening to him, the officer threw him to the ground before forcing him into the waiting vehicle.
They thereafter took him to the SCID, stripped him of everything he had and put him in a cell, after which, they demand for N10,000 before he could be released but later collected N6,000.
He said, "Yesterday night around 11pm, I was going to drop off my friend close to my area and on our way, we met a Salami vigilante group. They stopped us but when they noticed I was the one, they let us go.
"We met another Salami group and they stopped us too and I know one of them - Zakariya, and I told him that I just wanted to drop off my friend, but he refused and said that he doesn't know me. He asked who I was and changed the whole issue.
"He then called the police escort who were with them who came and without asking me who I am or what was happening, they forcefully dragged me out of my bike. In that process, they burnt my bike's silencer.
"They pushed me to where their leader was and as I wanted to speak with him, he forcefully pushed me to the ground, opened the door of their vehicle and forced me into the vehicle.
"They took me to their office at the State CID, I spoke with one of my friends on the phone and after my friend spoke with one of the officers, he asked his boys to put me behind the counter. I tried to speak with him to explain what happened to him but he refused to listen.
"The officer removed everything I had on me and pushed me into a cell. He asked me to switch off my phone and collected all the money I had. As I kept on talking to him, he called their boss who brought me and my friend to the station.
"At first, they demanded N10,000 but later collected N6,000 from me before releasing my property to me and letting me go."
The Sokoto State Police Command has yet to react to the incident.