Police X-Squad Interrogates Lagos Tactical Squad Commander and Team Over Alleged Extortion, Unlawful Detention
LAGOS-CRACK X-squad Detectives attached to the Force Criminal Investigation Department FCID Annex, Alagbon Ikoyi Lagos have subjected the 2nd Rainbow Tactical Squad Commander CSP Babaa Mohammad and some members of his team to hours of interrogation for allegedly demanding and collecting N300,000 each front fourteen suspects on trump-up allegations. Sources said, two of the suspects who had paid the forced N300,000 whose parents were asked to come the next day to be taken on bail were hurriedly photographed with arms and ammunition in front of them to give an impression that the prohibitive items belonged to them and charged to court Tuesday February 4, 2025 to cover up after a signal from the FCID X-squad directing the team to transfer the casefile.
This followed a petition on their misuse of Police power, massive extortion and illegal detention to the Inspector-General of Police IGP Kayode Egbetokun.
Some members of the community who spoke on condition of anonymity said trouble started after one Mr. Jeff Aburime, a Hotelier on Teniola Street Ijeshatedo fell out with some of his friends who are said to be cultists he harboured in his hotel. According to them, the trouble was so tense that the cultists vandalised the hotel and destroyed so many appliances prompting him to rush to Ijesha Police Division to arrest the thugs adding however, that before the policemen could arrive the scene, the assailants had disappeared into thin air.
They further said that Mr. Aburime then ordered the Ijesha DPO to arrest whoever was onsight especially, around the number 52 Teniola Street Ijeshatedo but that the senior police officer declined on the ground that he could not arrest innocent persons for an offence committed by suspected cultists.
It was learnt that the refusal of the DPO to compromise, prompted Mr. Aburime to go to the 2nd Rainbow Tactical Squad to make the complaint. It was further gathered that policemen from the Tactical Squad led by one Inspector Apoyinbo Akinrogun then stormed Ijeshatedo in a commando style, firing sporadically into the air and arresting anybody on sight even as people, including market women scampered to safety for dear life. It was in the circumstance that Mrs. Kadija Kolade scampered into their flat to alert her husband who at the time was in his nightie of the presence of policemen in the vicinity.
However, unknown to Mrs. Kolade, while she was running for life, a policeman was hotly chasing after her for an arrest. Her husband, Mr. Taiwo Olayinka Kolade who thought the officers were from Ijesha Division, was frantically calling on the DPO to find out what was amis when the policeman who had broke entered their flat was now joined by others including Inspector Apoyinbo Akinrogun. They had surrounded Mr. Kolade that he was under arrest. Efforts to ask what the problem was and why he was being arrested were greeted with slaps and butt of the guns. He was seriously manhandled, bodily injuries were inflicted on him and his GSM handset seized. In the meantime, one of the officers had broken into Mr. Akolade’s bedroom and pulled out his wife hiding under the bed. She too was manhandled on the behest of Mr. Jeff Aburime saying that she was caught laughing while the thugs were destroying his hotel. The officers later left Mr. Taiwo Kolade off the hook and took his wife along with them also on the instruction of Mr. Aburime.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the rampaging officers, Mr. Taiwo Olayinka Kolade said in all his years on earth and on Teniola Street where he is one of the landlords, he never witnessed such harassment and brazen misuse of Police power. He said, “That day I was in the room I hadn’t even come out to the parlour when I heard my wife screaming police, police and running to the house. She ran to our flat and jammed the front door, but I came out to see what was actually happening. As I opened the door, I was confronted by a policeman who pushed me inside; I was shocked. I asked him what happened, why was he in my house, before Jack, he was joined by four other policemen and Mr. Aburime chanting, “waste him, waste him”. At this time they were slapping me, used the butt of the gun on my back, shoulder; all over. They seized my phone because I tried to call the DPO Ijeshatedo Division to ask why his men were on our street and by extension my house since I am close to him. When the “waste them, waste them” kept resonating, I kept my calm and followed them down.
“There, I discovered that they had arrested sany people including traders and market women, some of them, my wife’s colleagues; all seated on the ground. While the arrested persons were being hauled into the van, Mr.Aburime called one of them who I later discovered is Apoyinbo Akinrogun whispered to him that they should leave me and take my hypertensive wife with them because according to him, my wife was laughing at him while his thugs were destroying his property. I begged them to take me instead of my wife because she is hypertensive, but they refused.
Continuing, Mr. Kolade added, ” When they left, I went into my room, changed and dashed to the Ijeshatedo station. But there, the DPO told me that he never sent anybody to Teniola Street for any raid let alone my house. He said the men may have come from the Tactical Squad by 2nd Rainbow. It was the DPO who called the O/C to inquire if his men came to his jurisdiction and the O/C answered in the affirmative and the DPO started accusing of insubordination, on why he could come to his jurisdiction to effect a raid without informing him or ‘arriving’ at the station. I later went to the 2nd Rainbow Tactical Squad and met my wife and several others. I went and met the Commander to let him know that my wife was hypertensive but he wouldn’t listen. She was even denied of taking her drugs for the five days she was detained.
The following day, my wife told me that they brought her out the cell to a table where they had kept substances suspected to be cocaine, cannabis and other psychotropic substances and wanted to take her photographs with it to give an impression that those substances were recovered from her, but that she refused and opted for death instead which made them beat her the more. It was three days after that I went there that the Commander called me to go and get 500,000 thousand Naira for her bail because the DPO had called him on my behalf as a friend of the police. We however, bargained to N300,000 and he said I should go and pay which I did through a POS lady they called and I took my wife on bail. Because they’d collected N300,000 from me, they now asked my wife’s colleagues who sells pepper and tomatoes along the road who they had labelled armourer, arranged those substances to give an impression that they belong to her and took her photographs, to get N300,000 too. Others including but not limited Messrs Funmilayo Julius, Yetunde Usman, Kadija Alabi, Mustafa Yahaya, Adebishin Damilare, Tunde Akanni, Babajide Idowu equally paid N300,000 each before they were released. Two other suspects whose parents couldn’t get the N300,000 earlier but paid later and who were to be released the next day because according to then the Commander who will sign their release was not around were hurriedly photographed with arms and ammunition to give the impression that those items were recovered from them, were taken to court immediately they received a signal from FCID X-squad calling for the transfer of case file to cover up that they were indeed, criminals.”
Mr. Kolade further added that the problem with Jeff Aburime and members of the community started when he brought those thugs who were later discovered to be cultists to his hotel and harboured them. “Members of the community came together and held a security meeting on the activities of the thugs. So it was resolved that a security gate be erected at the beginning and end of the street, with security guards employed to man the gates. You will not believe that till date, Mr. Aburime didn’t participate nor pay a dime for this project till date. He even run a short rest and strippers’ night in the hotel which attracts all manner of human beings. All these did go down well with members of the community and that pitted him against us”, Mr. Kolade added.
When our reporter visited the 2nd Rainbow Tactical Squad to speak to the Commander, he was said not to be on seat. Contacted on his GSM handset number +234 806 053 3393, he denied knowledge of the incident including being quizzed nor knowing Mr. Jeff Aburime. “I am not aware of what you’re saying. I don’t know Jeff Aburime and I am not aware of ant raid or transfer of case file to X-squad from my Command,” he insisted.
Culled from Crime World.
