COVID-19 lockdown: ‘My encounter with police in New Karu’ By Terkula Igidi

Published Date Apr 17, 2020 0:53 AM

The police station at New Karu, a suburb close to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in Karu local government of Nasarawa State are taking advantage of the 24-hour curfew imposed on the LG by Governor Abdullahi Sule, to dehumanize and extort residents.

I was a victim of the police on Wednesday night at about 9: 45 pm and I found out that lives of detainees are placed in danger as the cell was crammed with suspects, most of them arrested for allegedly flouting the curfew.

As the Daily Trust City News Editor, I had gone out to meet up with sources for a story I am working on, but I was arrested alongside the three persons. I met up with the sources for a sodomy story I am working on at a relaxation spot in New Karu, but police arrived there, manhandled and bundled us into a white Toyota Hilux patrol van while my pleas that I was exempted from the curfew by virtue of my profession fell on deaf ears.

Where I was arrested with the sources, there were over five other persons there, but the patrol team extorted N100, 000 from each of them and released them.

At the station, they tried to force those arrested into the crowded, dirty cell and when the woman whose son, a man was trying to lure into sodomy, who I had met to get the story, tried to make a call to her brother that she was arrested and was at the station, one Okpe, who is probably a Corporal, slapped her and said she did not have the right to make a call.

When I intervened, he insulted me and threatened that he would deal with us before taking us to New Nyanya Police Area Command, where the Area Commander would teach us a lesson.

He also threatened to shave the beards of the fixer, who argued that journalists were exempted from the curfew or lockdown but he (Okpe) boasted that he is an arro-baga (a cultist) and he would kill him and nothing will happen.

When the fixer said it was an embarrassment that a policeman serving in the home state of the Inspector General of Police was boasting publicly of being a cultist, he slapped the fixer on the right cheek.

A colleague of mine later came and pleaded and we were released late at night.

Other residents who also had similar experiences said their worst fear is the police, who usually come out in mufti and private vehicles.

They said it was difficult to differentiate between the policemen and hoodlums.

The Nasarawa Police Command spokesman, ASP Rahman Nansel, said the commissioner of police has zero tolerance for corruption in the state and if anybody comes out to report he will take action. He insisted that the curfew in Karu is 24 hours and they don’t expect anybody to come out. He, however, admitted that journalists are exempted from the curfew because they are essential workers on the frontlines

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/covid-19-lockdown-my-encounter-with-police-in-new-karu.html

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The policemen at new nyanya police station makes nothing less huge sums of money daily. The primary Target are okada and Keke. It's really unfortunate that the lockdown has become a means of extortion for them. Sincerely, they are all criminals. Personally I have had an encounter with them. From the head to the tail in that station are criminals

Hmmm

Thank God they are not Covid-19- immuned.