Edo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Philip Ogbadu on Friday averted what could have snowball to a fresh #EndSARS protest with his timely intervention by preventing angry mobs from lynching two of his officers who extorted a young of the sum of N10,000 and his mobile phone.
The incident, Town Crier learnt occurred at a popular area within the Benin metropolis, called Obakhavbaye junction, off Oba Market Road.
According an eye witness account, the mob, in their hundreds had descended on one of the police officers, holding him hostage, out of the five officers alleged to collected a phone and the sum of N10,000 from the young man. However, the quick intervention of the commissioner of police, saved the situation from happening.
Town Crier learnt that the officers had accosted the young man at the TV Road area of Benin metropolis and forcefully collected his android phone and the sum of N10,000.
The young man, while narrating what transpired between him and the police officers to the angry residents, said the police officers in a dark colored Sienna vehicle with no registration number stopped the Lexus Jeep with registration number Edo RRU 350 NE, he was driving at TV Road and collected his android phone and the sum of N10,000.
According to him, “They stopped me at TV road. Immediately they stopped the vehicle I was driving in company of my sister, they took my android phone and N10,000”.
“They demanded for my vehicle documents which I presented to them. Having found the documents to be completed, they still entered the vehicle. They didn’t tell me my offence. Probably, they think I was into internet fraud.
“They also destroyed one of my sister phones”, he added
The young man whose name was not given apparently for his safety, said the police officers, who are five in number, said they were from the Anti-cultism unit of the Edo State police command headquarters, Benin City.
The crowd was said to have been attracted to the scene, following the resistance put up by the young man, thus forcing the police officer to abandon the Lexus Jeep and the occupants at the Obakhavbaye Street Junction by Oba Market Road and zoomed off with the phone and the money.
Luck however, ran out on one of the policemen, who could not keep pace with his fleeing colleagues and was apprehended by the growing crowd, which, in sympathy with the young man and his sister, held the stranded police officer hostage with the condition that he would be released only if his colleagues returned the Android phone and the money.
The atmosphere became charged, when the other policemen returned to rescue their colleague and one of them threatened to shoot.
The threat infuriated the crowd the more, who also held another of the policemen on the same conditions of release.
As tension continued to rise, the CP, acting on a distress call made to the Command’ Headquarters, raced down to the scene, alongside with the command chain of his beat to calmed down the restive crowd by handing over to the young man, all the items forcefully taken from him by the policemen.
In the same vein, elder brother of the victim, who is the owner of the Lexus Jeep, also came along to take his younger ones home from the scene.
Some members of the restive crowd, who condemned the actions of the policemen warned that unless the police authorities in Benin took immediate actions to curb the excesses of their officers and other ranks. another round of #EndSARS protest will be inevitable in the state, vowing that this time, it will be difficult to contain.