Lagos DPO Sacked For Extorting N200,000 From Phone Dealer

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, has ordered the immediate removal of the divisional police officer in Meiran for allegedly extorting N200,000 from a phone dealer.

The state’s police spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, disclosed this via the microblogging platform, X, on Wednesday, where he said the officers culpable have been identified and are currently on trial.

Hundeyin wrote; “CP Idowu Owohunwa has ordered the immediate removal of DPO Meiran for leadership dereliction and supervisory ineptitude

“Meanwhile, all the officers involved have been identified and are currently at the Command headquarters where their orderly room trial has commenced.” 

Hundeyin had vowed that the police would take necessary action after an engineer, Ibrahim Saliu, accused some officers attached to the Meiran Police Station of extorting him of N200,000 on Saturday.

Saliu said the officers detained him and his brother, Olaiya Murtala, for not providing an identity card or the receipts for the iPhones found with his brother.

The engineer said he said he had sent his brother to his shop with six iPhones, but during a stop-and-search, the police officers intercepted him and took him to the police station.

Saliu said, “When I got there, the DPO asked me to produce my ID and the receipts for the phones. I told him I didn’t have them. I told him I sell phones, but he didn’t believe me. I then told him that though I didn’t have all the receipts, I could take them to my shop, which was close by, but they still refused.

“The DPO took the iPhones, removed the warranty stickers on them, and declared that my brother and I are thieves and armed robbers.

“The next thing I heard was the DPO giving them an order to detain us and that we would be locked up for stealing and armed robbery. We were surprised that we started begging.”

He said that the DPO later asked them to pay N500,000 to secure their freedom, adding that they begged him until they settled for N200,000, which the police officers insisted must be paid in cash.

He also revealed that one of the police officers led him to a nearby PoS operator, where he withdrew N182,000 in addition to the N20,000 he had on him and gave the officers before they were released.