Four police officers have been detained by the Federal Capital Territory Police Command for allegedly extorting N53,000 from the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, Dr Musa Aliyu (SAN), during an illegal stop-and-search operation in Abuja.
The FCT Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Sanusi, disclosed this on Monday while briefing journalists in Abuja, describing the officers as “thieves” who had no business wearing the police uniform.
According to him, the officers mounted an unauthorised checkpoint around the Banex area of Wuse after leaving their respective duty posts and extorted the ICPC chairman without knowing his identity.
He said the ICPC boss was forced to withdraw N53,000 through a Point of Sale operator and even paid the transaction charges before the officers shared the money among themselves.
“I must say here too that we have about four policemen in custody as we speak who successfully extorted somebody of high importance, unknown to them that this person is a highly placed person in society. In clear terms, they extorted the Chairman of the ICPC.
“They extorted him of N53,000. They took him to a POS, he withdrew the money, paid the charges and they shared the money among themselves, ” he said.
The police commissioner said investigations revealed that the officers had abandoned their designated duty posts and formed a gang that mounted an illegal checkpoint to extort motorists.
