Policemen Threaten, Harass Daily Times Correspondent in Osun

By Segun Adejumo

The Osun State Correspondents of Daily Times Newspaper, Mr Sodik Adekunle was allegedly threatened and harassed by some police officers attached with Robot Team, on Friday.

Adekunle said he was subjected to psychological trauma when he was accosted by the policemen at the popular RCC junction, Ede Road around 09.55am.

The journalist in reported that the policemen ordered the passengers in a commercial vehicle to alight, after which the two young males in the vehicle were invited for a search. He was one of the two males invited for search.

He said: “While the other passenger submitted his phone for the search, I requested to know why my phones needed to be searched.

“On request, one of the police officers, Disu Usman, threatened to lock me up, ‎saying that “You don’t know us abi! This is a robot team.”

“When I asked if I could be taken to the nearest police station, Usman responded that “you are very stupid for asking that question. Don’t you know who I am?”

“Usman subsequently dragged me inside the vehicle and signaled to other policemen. The development attracted the intervention of other passengers of the 18-seater bus.

“After their intervention, I agreed to hand my phone over to the driver of the commercial vehicle who later gave it to the policemen to search.

“While Usman examined the phone and could not find anything incriminating, he beckoned on another police office on bullet proof for another search on the phone.

“The policeman examined the contacts, messages, social applications (messengers) of the passenger and later asked: “Where do you work? Where are you going to? Are you a Muslim‎?‎”

“I subsequently responded that I work with Daily Times Newspaper and that I was going to make a transaction at a bank in Osogbo. The officer later searched my bag but still found nothing.

“Upon request for my Identity Card which was I provided, the officer said, “You don’t want us to search your phone because you are a journalist, we have searched and beaten a lawyer here before.”

“Another officer, Abdullah Oyetunde‎, on arrival at the scene asked me to re-submit my identity card.

“He looked at the card and asked, “Where is the head office of Daily Times? Which companies are before and after it? If you cannot answer that, I will not release you.”

“I don’t know why a policeman will say I should give him my phone and he was not ready to tell me why. I needed to know why because dailing some codes now could reveal all you account details and subject you to security threat.

“I was more suspicious when the policeman was forcing the phone off my hand. Why could he be so desperate to the extent of wanting to snatch and dragging my phone from me? They didn’t even initially bother about my bag, they only wanted the phone at all means.

“And I was not surprised that after getting the phone, the message showing the last transaction I made was the target. I had to leave the phone when some elderly intervene and I was scared that the policemen can shoot or even kill me and cook up several lies to cover that up.”

Recall that about a week ago, two students of the Osun State University, Kazeem Adesola and Ibrahim Ajao were allegedly shot by some policemen in Osun State.

It was gathered that the students were playing football at a pitch off-campus around Oke-Baale when the policemen suddenly came in mufti and accused some of the students of involving in internet fraud also known as Yahoo-Yahoo

It was learnt that attempt by the students to resist the harassment led to the shooting.

When contacted for a reaction on the increasing police harassment in the state, the Osun State Police Command Public Relations ‎Officer, Sade Odoro, said she needed to get more information about the recent happening, according to Adekunle.

She said that the recent allegation should not be linked with that of UNIOSUN students’ shooting, adding that that was already under investigation.

It would be recalled that a team of policemen in white Hilux vehicle with MTN inscription which is notorious for the harassment of the innocent residents of the state, had beaten the correspondent of the Hallmark newspaper in the state, Mr Segun Adeyemi.

Adeyemi was harassed and beaten by the policemen at the Freedom Park, Osogbo. His phone was also damaged by the policemen.