A Lagos-based man, Kamil Mahmud, has accused some men of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of extortion and threat to life.
According to The Punch, Mahmud, a Human Resources manager, said one of the men threatened to drink his blood.
Mahmud said he was in the Ikeja area of Lagos with his brothers to appear at an interview on a radio station when some policemen stopped their car.
He said the incident happened in the Agidingbi area of Lagos on Friday.
The 26-year-old said the men did not allow him to alight from the vehicle before threatening to shoot.
“I waved my hand to tell them that I was not running away and I just wanted to find somewhere to park. I was thinking it was going to be a normal civilian-police conversation. But I realised the situation was getting more aggressive even before I got down from the car.
“One of the policemen asked me to come down from the car and told my friends and my brothers, who were driving behind me, to stay back.
“I came down and he said he wanted to search the car. I told him to go ahead. But before he even tried to search, he had started manhandling me.
“I told him that he had not even asked for my name or who owned the car I was driving and what I did for a living.
“He, however, searched me and the car without finding anything incriminating.
“I don’t drive with my shoes on; so, when I got down, I was barefooted. I told the three officers more than five times that I wanted to get my shoes, but they looked at me with no response.
“The moment I tried to get my shoes, the policemen went berserk and started slapping and hitting me. One of them was shouting that he drank blood and he was ready to drink my blood. He pulled my shirt and trousers and threw me into their vehicle, a Sienna, without a number plate.”
He added, “As I sat on the back seat of their car, one of them put handcuffs in my hands. They never told me what I did wrong.
“The one who assaulted me with the cutlass started the car and drove to Ikeja GRA. On getting to the Area F Police Commad, the officers refused to enter the premises and I told them that they should take me inside the station and file a report because I really wanted to know what my offence was. They shouted at me that I still had the mouth to talk.
“The officer driving had a bottle of gin in front of the car; he was drinking and driving. They later negotiated with my brothers and demanded N15,000.
“My brothers went to use the ATM at Conoil Filling Station, but the ATM did not dispense cash. Then one of the policemen got angry and started driving towards Oba Akran Road. When we got there, he parked and waited for my brothers.
“My brothers came and told them that they were able to get N8,000. They collected it, removed the handcuffs from my hand and told me to get out of their car.”
The paper quoted the Police Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Command, SP Chike Oti as saying that the officers could not have been SARS men as they did not have uniforms with tags for easy identification.
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