One of Nigeria’s most vibrant newspapers, The Punch, has petitioned the Police Inspector-General, Alhaji Usman Alkali Baba, over the alleged attack on its correspondent, Toni Ufor, by some policemen attached to the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) on Wednesday.
The officers also reportedly seized Ufor’s phone and identity card.
In the petition, the newspaper’s Editor Ademola Oni, described that action as unwarranted, provocative, uncivilised, crude and barbaric.
Oni said that Ufoh was assigned to cover the case of some tenants, who allegedly were defrauded by a developer, Adewale Tunde, at the Milverton Office of the SFU in Ikoyi.
According to him: “The reporter’s offence was that he had the audacity to conduct interviews with the victims allegedly defrauded by the developer in front of the premises of the Unit. The power-drunk policemen descended on the helpless reporter, accusing him of recording the SFU office. After he was made to identify himself as a journalist, the overzealous policemen arrested the reporter, deleted all the interviews he had conducted on his telephone set and went ahead to seize the set and confiscated his ID card.
“These cops equally threatened to lock up the journalist when he demanded the return of his set and card which are his lawful property. The intervention of one of the crime reporters on the Metro Desk of the newspaper failed to assuage the flaming impunity of these policemen, who ensured they frustrated the coverage of the assignment for reasons best known to them.”
According to Oni, attacks on his reporters by officers of the Nigerian Police Force have become a recurring decimal, from Lagos to Imo, from Enugu to Kaduna in the recent past.
“I have the authority of the management of The PUNCH Nigeria Limited to request that you use your good offices to direct that the errant policemen return the telephone set and the ID card of Ufor to him at the corporate head office of The PUNCH Nigeria Limited, The PUNCH Place, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in Magboro before 6:00 p.m. today (yesterday), December 30, to ensure fairness.
“We also demand that these overzealous policemen be punished for taking the laws into their own hands by attacking an innocent Nigerian, obstructing a journalist from carrying out his lawful duty, and dragging the image of the Force in the mud through their crudeness and brazen display of their self-imposed power,” he said.
The newspaper had earlier reported the story with the title: “Power-drunk SFU policemen manhandle PUNCHman, seize phone, ID card.”
According to the story: “Some power-drunk mobile policemen attached to the Police Special Fraud Unit in Lagos State on Wednesday seized the telephone and identity card of a reporter with The PUNCH Newspaper, Toni Ufoh.
Ufoh had gone to the Milverton, Ikoyi area of Lagos State where the office of the SFU was located to speak with some prospective tenants allegedly defrauded by a developer, Adewale Tunde.
The PUNCH reporter was talking to the victims in front of the station when he was approached by the policemen, who accused him of filming the SFU building.
The men thereafter seized his telephone and ID card.
All efforts to retrieve the items proved abortive, as the policemen manhandled Ufoh and deleted the pictures of the housing scam victims in his phone.
Recounting his experience, the reporter said, “About three policemen, one in camouflage and the others in mufti, approached me as I was speaking to one of the victims of the fraud at the SFU office gate. They asked to see what was in my phone and I explained to them that I was a journalist and I came to interview some of the victims of the housing scam. They demanded to see my identity card, which I promptly showed them. Immediately, they seized it and took me to their security post.
“One of them searched my phone for the recorded video but could not find any, so he checked the picture folder where he saw a picture of the fraud victims where they had gathered, and he deleted it.
“Despite appeals made to the officers by the fraud victims, some of whom informed them that I was a journalist who only came to interview them, they failed to return my phone and identity card after waiting for several hours. The policemen took me to their office and threatened to lock me up with criminals who would deal with me severely.”
The acting PUNCH Metro Head, Samson Folarin, who spoke to one of the officers on the telephone, urged him to release the items as the reporter was only doing his job.
The policeman, who did not identify himself, said, “What warrant him to come here and interview people? If he was doing his job, that was why we seized his phone, let him explain himself to the CP. The CP is on his way and he knows what is going on now.”
Folarin asked that the matter be resolved amicably.
The officer said, “We have already informed the CP; the CP is already on his way over the matter. We don’t know what can happen. This was how they burnt our stations. What makes him come to interview or video on police premises?”
After all efforts to retrieve the phone and ID card from the officers failed, Ufoh left the station.
A spokesperson for the SFU, DSP Eyitayo Johnson, said he was not aware of the incident.
He said, “I am just hearing about this for the first time, but I will find out by tomorrow.”
The prospective tenants, numbering about 200, had paid various sums of money ranging from N200,000 to N1m to secure apartments in a house on Obayon Street in the Akoka area of Lagos.
Our correspondent learnt that after the victims paid into the developer’s Stanbic Bank account between November and early December 2021, he disappeared.
The victims were led by a businessman, Obiakor Emmanuel.
The case, which was reported at the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, was transferred to the SFU.
Most of the victims, who turned up at the SFU on Wednesday, used the occasion to demand the arrest of the suspect.
They were being interviewed when the reporter was manhandled by the policemen.”
