Some ladies in a commercial bus have allegedly been harassed and arrested by police officers led by one Inspector, A. O. Alaka, for talking about the #OccupyLekkiTollGate protest and the arrest of the protesters.
EKO HOT BLOG gathered that the incident, which has led to an outrage on social media, happened around the Maryland area of Lagos State on Saturday.
In a video shared on social media, Inspector Alaka was seen asking other passengers in the bus to alight and ordered the driver not to move.
He was also seen restricting the ladies’ movement as he sought assistance from other persons suspected of being police officers.
According to sources, about ten police officers later joined the Inspector at the scene of the incident.
In the ensuing conversation, the ladies protested the policeman’s action as they challenged him to state their offense.
“Why should I come down? What happened? I have not gotten to my bus stop. You should talk to me politely. Tell us what we did,” one of the ladies shouted.
The officer, who held one of the ladies to prevent her from escaping, said, “You are abusing the Nigerian police.”
Reacting, the Compliant Response Unit of the Nigerian Police tweeted, “PoliceNG_CRU has taken necessary action regarding the complaint.”
Narrating the incident in a series of tweets, Slim Bullet @Stargious, one of the ladies involved, said, “This happened today (Saturday), a police officer said we were insulting him earlier this evening because we were talking about the protests and how @mrmacaronii and others have been poorly treated by the @PoliceNG.
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“We didn’t even realise he was on the same bus till my friend got down, and he held her and said we would have to come down and follow him to the station for just talking (since when did they take away our freedom of speech?)
“This man called other police officers standing at the Maryland bus stop, and they all came around to harass us further.
“He was going to break my phone, so I stopped recording, and we had to apologize for talking. In Nigeria, we had to apologize for just talking about the #EndSARS and #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest. We were not even actively involved.”
Slim Bullet explained that it took bystanders’ intervention to save them from passing the night in the police cell.
I’m sorry I didn’t mention earlier that the bystanders were the ones who started begging all the police officers on our behalf and stopped them from taking the three of us to the cell tonight. Also, they were more than ten officers there. He wasn’t alone.”
Many Nigerians, on social media, have condemned the police officers’ actions.
One of them, @seun_ade24, said, “The officer went overboard.”
“The day the rights of other citizens are respected by the government and security agencies, that’s when Nigeria can be a better place than we all wish. Why on earth does he want to take the ladies to the station? Oh! Just for criticizing the government!” @youngpey added.
Taita @simingi “@PoliceNG are gradually trying to censor our freedom and tell us how to talk, think and behave.”
Amanda @amandaergoyoga said, “This is disgusting! So, people can’t talk now? I think people need to wake up from slumber truly. All this violence will only breed further violence and pain if they don’t stop all this rubbish.”
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