By Pascal Ibe

Claim

An X user, @ChuksEricE has posted a video showing Nigerian policemen assaulting and extorting travelers on a highway.

The X user shared the video with a caption that reads, “Nigeria Police strikes again🧎🤦

“This police brûtality is getting too much oo
Just listen to the person making this video💔🤦

In the one-minute, 11-second video that he published recently, an officer was seen slapping and harassing a passenger.

A male voice in the video explained that the policemen took some other passengers to a nearby Point of Sale shop(POS) and extorted a huge amount from them.

The male voice stated that the incident occurred on a road in Kogi State, Nigeria’s North Central region.

The video shared by @ChuksEricE has garnered over 325k and hundreds of reposts and likes on the X platform.

Check original claim here

For a long time now in Nigeria, citizens have continued to lament over what seems like unending police brutality to them, especially the youths.

The police brutality in Nigeria includes Highway extortions, abductions, and extra judiciary killings by rogue officers.

However, in many moves over these years, the police authorities in Nigeria have tried to ensure that these officers are being made to face the law.

Verification

This FactChecker simply did a keyword search, “POLICEMEN ASSAULT PASSENGERS ON KOGI ROAD”, on Google search to discover that the video was an incident that happened around October 2021.

Citing credible news organizations in Nigeria, Premium Times reported that the Kogi State Police Command confirmed it arrested four of its personnel who were seen in a trending video extorting and assaulting travelers in a location in the state.

A statement by the Kogi State Police Command’s spokesperson, William Aya, said the persons were in detention while an investigation continued.

The arrest of the personnel comes a few hours after the ex-Inspector-General of Police, Alkali Baba, ordered an immediate investigation into the matter.

According to the report, the police personnel attached to Adogo Division were on patrol duty along Adogo-Okene road when the incident occurred.

The police said the personnel comprises one senior officer and three junior policemen.

They were identified as Isah Barnabas, an assistant superintendent of police; Ifediegwu Godwin, an inspector; Emmanuel Ochima, a sergeant; and Umameh Mathias, a corporal.

The statement said the ex-Commissioner of Police in the state, Idrisu Dabban, assured that the command was doing its best to establish contact with the victims and enjoined them to reach out to it (Command) through 08107899269.

The police “assured that any of the officers found wanting in the investigations would be dealt with accordingly.”

See other news publications that corroborate this report here and here.

News Central TV also shared the video in 2021 here.

Verdict

The video of policemen assaulting and extorting travelers on Kogi Road occurred in 2021 but recirculated to mislead the public. Therefore it’s MISLEADING.