VIDEO: Police harass commercial bus passengers for comments on #OccupyLekki protest

In a related development, one inspector A. O. Alaka, attached to the Lagos State Police Command, has allegedly arrested and harassed some ladies in a commercial bus for commenting over the #OccupyLekki protest.

It was gathered that the ladies, who were in the same bus with the policeman on Saturday condemned the attack on protesters at the Lekki tollgate.

 

However, when one of the ladies, identified as Chika Eze, wanted to alight from the bus at the Maryland bus stop, the policeman, who sat in front of the bus restricted her and ordered her two other friends to come down from the bus.

This happened today, 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 treated badly by the @PoliceNG. We didn't even realize he was on the same bus till my friend got down and he pic.twitter.com/FHhHbKaTYa

— Slim Bullet🎯 #Endsars (@Stargious) February 13, 2021

In a viral video posted by one of the ladies, Mayowa Babatunde, the policeman could be seen holding the hand of Chika while threatening to arrest them.

The policeman could be seen calling on other policemen at the Maryland bus stop.

 

Mayowa later told our correspondent on the telephone that Alaka and the other policemen threatened to lock them up in a cell for daring to speak against the Nigeria Police Force.

She said, “We boarded a bus from Ikeja going to Palmgroove and we started talking about how the police harassed Mr Macaroni and the other protesters.

“I said I could not allow any of my family members to join the police and that if any of my children wanted to join the police, I would curse the child.

 

“He was sitting at the front seat listening to all what we were saying and when we got to Maryland and my friend wanted to get down from the bus, he held her and asked the other two of us to come down from the bus and that he was going to arrest us.

“He called all the other police officers at Maryland; we asked him what our offence was. When the other policemen came, he told them that we were insulting and cursing him and we asked him if he was the one we were talking to or if he was among the bad officers we were referring to, but he didn’t answer.

“People at the bus stop were the ones begging him to allow us to go and when they asked us to beg him; we said we would not beg him because we were only talking and we have freedom of speech. The other policemen said if we would not beg, they would take us to their cell that after we’ve been there for three days, we will be humble and apologise for what we say.”

When contacted, the state Police Public Relations, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said the command had begun a search for the police officer.

He said, “I have seen the video and sent same to the computer section of the command to search for that inspector if he serves with us in the Lagos State Command. If not, we will extend our search to other police formations within Lagos State.”