A Nigerian activist, Tunde Abass, who was arrested and detained for filming police officers harassing a citizen has recounted his ordeal in police cell, according to SaharaReporters.
Tunde was arrested on Sunday by officers attached to Onipanu Division for filming them in operation.
In a video live-streamed on his Facebook account, a policeman was seen trying to harass a young man driving a wine-coloured car.
Tunde was heard shouting at the top of his voice and telling the police officer not to harass the man because “he has provided necessary documents”.
“You’re trying to intimidate the guy. They’ve burst his tyres. They’ve burst the guy’s tyres. They’re trying to intimidate the guy,” he said.
The police officer was also heard addressing the man he was said to be harassing as “stupid”. But Tunde approached him to say “this is injustice”.
Speaking through his counsel, Ayo Ademiluyi, the activist said he was denied food brought by his friends and “beaten black and blue”.
“He was also detained with a mentally deformed detainee who made his midnight sleep a miserable one by kicking him in the sides.
“He was taken to the Yaba Magistrate Court, where the police officers who brought him from Onipanu Division were not successful in filing trumped-up charges against him after same was rejected by the counsel from the Department of Public Relations, who vetted the charges,” he says.
According to the account, the police officers returned him to the cell at Onipanu Division before taking him to Legal Department of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Panti “and were unsuccessful in getting a charge preferred against him”.
“In frustration, they handed him over to Divisional Police Officer of Pedro Police Station who kept him in a dark and dingy solitary cell, where nobody will have access to him,” the lawyer wrote.
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