The Imo State Police Commissioner has arrested three police officers for assulting, brutalizing and extorting Mr. Tochukwu Ukazu who lives in New York but returned to Nigeria to visit his family.
The arrest of the police officers was made after the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) made an official complaint to the Imo State Police Commissioner, with photos and video evidence of the crime committed.
According to a statement by the Executive Director of RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma on Thursday, Mr. Ukazu booked a Toyota Sienna car from a transport company called Abia Voyage limited and he was traveling with his wife and four-year old son to Asaba in Delta State from Umuahia.
He said trouble started when they got to Mbaise road, slightly after the purpular seven and half and Umuoke road leading to Obowo police station at about 9:15am on the 5th of April. The three police officers were stopping and collecting money from vehicles that drove pass them.
Mr. Ukazu narrating his horrifying ordeal at the hands of the police officers said: “They stopped their car and demanded the driver give them his ID card and vehicle particulars which the driver provided to them.
“The officers told the driver that it has expired and that he should come out of the car and they will take the car to the station. Police officer no 2 came inside the car and reversed it, we asked him where he was taking us to and he said ‘station’.
“We told him he can’t take us to the police station because we did not do anything wrong. The driver told them they cannot take his car too to the station because it’s a company car. As the police officers continued to delay us for more than 30 minutes. I used my phone to start recording what was going on for my family’s safety as you can see the video is just 27 seconds.
“The rest of the things that happened after the video stopped were horrible for anybody to face in the hands of police officers. The police officer no 2 was the one on the driver’s side with his gun, he assaulted me, punched me on my face and head and corked his gun to shoot me.
“Police officer no 1 called ‘Tallest’ who is their leader, handcuffed me, collected my phone, forced me to open my phone and he deleted the video I made and also went into my phone trash to permanently delete the video so nobody will ever see the this video. While all this was going on, my wife was crying and begging them to leave me; my son was crying, shouting ‘leave my daddy’, ‘leave my daddy’.
“He vomited out of fear, anxiety and the brutality I was going through. At a time the police officers wanted to separate me from my family.
“They stopped Keke to take me inside the bush to execute me because they said I want to make them lose their job after many years in the police. The police officer no 1 ‘Tallest’ made a video of me to admit that I video-recorded them.
“My wife refused to let them take only me away, and insisted that the police officers should take everyone wherever they wanted to take me to. The police officer no 1 said I have to pay them N100,000 if I wanted them to let me go. I told them I didn’t have up to that amount with me but offered to pay them N50,000 cash but the police officer no 1 refused and said they will take me to POS to withdraw the money.
“So police officers nos 1 and 2 entered inside the sienna with us . I withdrew the N100,000 and gave it to them before they let us go. The police officer no 1 said he was letting me go because of how traumatized my son was.
“Till today my 4 years old son is still describing what happened to me and he touches my face and asks me if I feel okay. These police officers have no business in the Nigeria police force. They brutalized me, humiliated me, rough handled me, held me and my family against our fundamental human rights and me hostage. I need justice. I used a special software and app to record this video after they deleted it permanently from my phone.
Reacting, the police said,”This morning, the AC X Squad, Imo State Police Command, on the directives of the CP, called and informed me that the officers had been identified and were before the CP. He wanted the complainant to come and identify the officers. He’s still in Lagos. But we availed him the AC’s number to call him.
The Command’s Spokesperson, Henry Okoye confirmed the arrest saying that “The officers are currently under detention at the State Criminal Investigation Department. Orderly Room Trial Follows.”