My experience with the Police in Rivers

ON Monday, June 25, i went to the Oyigbo Police Station in Rivers State, to inquire why a relative was in their custody.

At the counter, a lanky woman police officer responded to my inquiry lackadaisically. While pressing on to know if my relative was really in their gulag, she flipped through a worn-out note book in front of her, they obviously wrote names of their captives.

As i glanced at a black board vertically crossed with white lines placed on a wall, i noticed that there was no single name written on it. When she finally saw the name of my relative, after an excruciating search, she asked, “do you want to see him?”

Quickly, I responded, “yes”. But to my surprise, she said I should buy two ‘toilet tissues’ and a bottle of Dettol and give N200 before I can see my relative. Shocked, i flared up and wanted to see the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of the station to lay my fears. But, i was told that the DPO went to the state command headquarters, along Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, for a meeting with the Commissioner of Police.

I was so angry with this development. Furious, i cried out, one day, a case will expose the evil acts of the police in Oyigbo, and in all other parts of the state My relative, Samuel, is still in their gulag, while the IPO, Corporal Okoro went with the DPO to see the commissioner, and I did not even see my relative to understand what his ‘sins’ were because I did not buy two ‘toilet tissues’ and a bottle of Dettol and a seeming levy of N200.

Odimegwu Onwumere is the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV).

ENDS

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