The Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi has issued an order to Nigerians.
He urged Nigerians to report any police officer seen searching the phone of a passenger or anybody.
Adejobi stated this on his Twitter page.
According to the Force PRO, searching through people’s phones is unprofessional, so any officer caught doing that should be reported to the authorities for disciplinary action.
He was reacting to a video posted by an X user @tadeosun074 showing a police officer searching through the phone of a young male passenger.
In the video, the officer could be heard saying in Pidgin language, “Me that has been working for over 13 years now, this year will make me 14 years in service, I have never had money to buy N250,000 phone, it is N15,000 phone I’m using.”
Reacting, Adejobi wrote: “When you share items like this, do us good to mention location, if possible, date and time. It makes it easier to trace them. This info is scanty. So we need more info on this.”
Responding to Adejobi’s reaction, another X user, @KJexty, said that he had also once been a victim of such an incident.
The X user wrote, “Police are still doing this at Okpella, Edo state and Okene (Kogi state) road when travelling to Abuja. I was a victim here last week, and I paid 100,000 just to free myself.”
The Force PRO then said, “We will continue to go after the erring policemen who are bent on tarnishing the image of the force. Checking people’s phones on the road is not proper.
“In fact, it’s highly unprofessional. I am sure you know we have reacted and condemned it severely. So, report them to us, and we will take such cases up.”
