Police “arrest, torture, demand N200k from Lagos labourer on behalf of faceless madam”
Olumide, popularly called “Baba Ayo”, works at Iddo Park in Lagos. He helps traders load goods on and off trucks.
Last Friday, he went missing.
“I was waiting for my husband to come home, he didn’t,” Olumide’s wife, an employee of the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), told Newsroom this morning.
The woman will not be named. Whenever she has free time, she goes to Idumota to sell sachet “pure” water. She has seven children, four of them from another relationship. One of the three she bore Olumide is barely four-month old. The family lives in Ilaje, Iwaya – a shanti community located in Yaba.
“We started looking for my husband. We called at almost every police station we knew,” she said.
It was in the process they were referred to Ajegunle Police Station where they found Olumide.
The man was reportedly in bad shape.
“They hung my hands and tortured me like a criminal, asking me to confess to a crime I know nothing about” Olumide told a family member who was part of the search team.
His crime?
“I trekked from Iddo to Idumota to see Chidi my friend,” he said. “My sandal strap cut along the way so I stopped at a cobbler’s spot to fix it.”
“Suddenly, some area boys started pointing in my direction, screaming, calling me thief. They were with one madam who said she just lost N100,000. The area boys said I was part of the gang that used blade to tear her bag and steal the money”.
Olumide was search. They found N50 in his pocket. Nothing more.
Still they beat the father of three and threatened to stab him. Olumide said he asked them: “If I stole her money, why would I wait around?” They replied by beating him the more.
“I then told them to call the police,” Olumide said. And that was how he went missing.
The madam whose money was stolen ignored Adeniji police station in the area and took Olumide to a station in Ajegunle where she reportedly had influence.
There police detained and allegedly tortured Olumide until his family found him on Sunday.
When the woman went to give her husband food on Tuesday, she had no transport money back to Iwaya. “I had to trek all the way back home,” she told us. There’s some 11km driving distance between Ajegunle and Iwaya.
We understand police told Olumide’s family to refund the madam’s N100,000 and also pay another N100,000 for bail. They said they won’t charge him to court if the family “settles us”.
A source told us a family member borrowed N5,000 to secure Olumide’s bail but police scornfully rejected the offer. The said family member later reportedly said he would let police corruption have its way if the officers refuse N10,000.
We understand Olumide has been charged to court as the family had no means to bribe the officers.
This comes amidst a police campaign against corruption. The police also insists “bail is free”. But we understand Nigerians know better.
We understand Olumide’s family were not allowed to meet with the woman alleged to have orchestrated the poor labourer’s ordeal. Repeated calls to Ajegunle Police Station were ignored.
