CLO Petitions Inspector General, Human Rights Commission Over Police Extortion in Bayelsa

Concerned by the spate of illegal activities of Bayelsa State Police, including the indiscriminate arrest of innocent persons, extortion, and shady deals of rank-and-file policemen, the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) has written a strongly worded petition to the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, and the authorities of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene.
In a statement issued by the State Chairman, Nengi James, the CLO said that the recent cases of indiscriminate arrests of innocent youths and elders in Bayelsa State under Police Commissioner Paul Okafor is worrisome, wicked, and without due regard to the rule of law.
The CLO, after a preliminary investigation by a special team of undercover agents and youth leaders, discovered a shocking dimension to the illegal deities of the Bayelsa State Police through the men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and the various divisions of the State Police command.
The report showed that the police command, on a daily basis, engage in mass arrests in the State capital and accuse their victims of "wandering,” then demand the sum of between N5,000 and N10,000 before they are released without any documentation.
Those who cannot pay the illegally demanded fees are made to sleep in a congested cell, where over a hundred people are cramped together.
While the ordinary citizens seem to be a source of easy money for the police, commercial motorcyclists known as Keke NAPEP have also become a source of riches to ordinary cops.
Source: SR

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