The Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit, also known as Task Force has been accused of extortion.
According to a Lagos-based sports journalist, Babajide Guerrero
The journalist insisted that the operatives should make a refund of N100,000 allegedly extorted from him.
Narrating what happened on Twitter, he said the incident occurred while he was on his way to record the final episode of the world cup for a television station.
Guerrero wrote, “On December 19, I was on my way to shoot the last episode of @PulseSportsNG world cup show that I was commissioned to do. I was on my lane, approaching Edmund Street, turning into uni road at Jibowu when a Suzuki cab overtook me.
“A few minutes later, men from the Lagos task force came out of two yellow commercial buses and arrested that Suzuki cab and some other cars; they claimed it was Double Lane. I was on my right lane when one of the officers said ‘oga reverse, let us arrest these guys.’ while I was reversing, this guy recorded me reversing, and told his colleagues to arrest me, saying ‘he’s among’, it was like a movie as they were already in my car before I could do a thing.”
“They drove me to Alausa and stressed my life, I won’t come here tweeting if I was wrong, I wasn’t wrong. Adeyemi, leader of Team C, Lagos task force, told me to reverse for them to arrest the culprit but he recorded me reversing and arrested me too.”
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Guerrero later explained that while he waited at Alausa, one of the officers approached him and demanded N50,000 while another N50,000 was demanded when he was taken to the agency’s head office at Bolade Oshodi.
He said, “At Alausa, one of the officers that arrested me approached me and demanded N50,000. I had to make the withdrawal and paid the money in cash with the hope that he would go into their office and help me get my car, but he disappeared with the money.
“After that, another guy who wasn’t a police officer but worked with them said he had spoken to officer Adeyemi and he (Adeyemi) said I should pay N150,000. I asked him if they saw anything implicating in my car for me to pay such an amount. He said he would speak to the officer again; he later reduced the amount to N50,000.
“I was then taken to their office at Bolade Oshodi. There is a shop in there that they use and I had to make another withdrawal of N50,000 which I paid the guy. He went with the money and later returned with a stapled paper. It was the stapled paper I took back to Alausa for them to release my car.
“At Oshodi, I saw officer Adeyemi and confronted him since he was the one who told me to reverse but he was only laughing and did not say anything. That’s one of the coldest things that has happened to me in my entire adult life. When I was done, I had to pay N1,000 gate pass fee.”
Reacting to the allegation, the task force spokesperson, Abdulraheem Gbadeyan, told the journalist to make a formal complaint to the agency’s chairman.
He said, “The standard protocol was for him to ask the officers to charge him to court. If he has any evidence, let him write to the agency’s chairman, and I’ll surely pursue the case.”