Secrets Reporters
A reporter with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), Abubakar Mark Sule, has narrated a harrowing ordeal in the hands of officers attached to the ‘C’ Divisional Police Headquarters in Lokoja, Kogi State, where he was profiled, brutally beaten, threatened with death, forced to write an undertaking not to report the incident, and eventually extorted of N3,000 before his release.
The incident occurred on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, when Abubakar, who had travelled from Lagos to Lokoja to resolve pending NYSC documentation and collect his original certificate from the Federal University Lokoja, was stopped at a police checkpoint at Gadumo while riding a borrowed motorcycle to visit his late father’s younger sister in Ganaja Village.
According to his detailed account, officers at the checkpoint immediately labelled him a “Yahoo boy” without any questioning or investigation. One officer shouted, “Stop that Yahoo boy there! Stop him! He must pay today!” Before he could fully stop, another officer had already passed judgment on him based solely on his appearance.
Abubakar said he calmly explained that he was a recent graduate of the Federal University Lokoja who had come to sort out NYSC matters and collect his certificate. He showed his student identity card, but the officers dismissed it, insisting he looked too fresh to be a legitimate graduate and must “settle” them before being allowed to pass.
When he insisted he had no money and was not involved in internet fraud, the situation escalated. The officers confiscated his phone, snatched the motorcycle key, and took the bread and Hollandia yoghurt he had bought for his aunt, spilling them on the ground. One officer rode the motorcycle away to the station while Abubakar was left stranded.
At the ‘C’ Divisional Police Headquarters, the brutality intensified. He was taken into a small office where a female officer identified as Esther began taking his statement. When he requested to call his family or a lawyer, Esther reportedly shouted at him and threatened to slap him. Another officer in mufti, known as “Oga Dare”, then took over, subjecting him to repeated slaps, kicks, and punches while threatening to kill him and anyone who dared to question his actions.
Abubakar recounted that Oga Dare claimed to have a “bloodthirsty shrine” in Ogun State and threatened to use his handwriting from the forced statement to paralyse and eventually kill him. The officer also boasted that he could implicate him by planting illegal apps on his phone and that even the Chief Security Officer of the university knew him and would support any action taken against him.
Despite intervention by Benjamin Olorunfemi Timothy Omeiza, the immediate past Students’ Union Government President of the Federal University Lokoja, who knelt and pleaded on Abubakar’s behalf, the assault continued. Abubakar was forced to write an undertaking stating he would not report the incident to anyone, including the media, under threat of further violence and legal action. A video of him reading the undertaking was recorded under duress.
He was eventually released after paying N3,000 to two elderly female officers at the front desk, who directed him to a nearby POS operator to withdraw the money. He left the station at exactly 4:40 pm, battered, traumatised, and in severe pain.
SecretsReporters reached out to ASP Saliu Oyiza Afusat, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Kogi State Command, to get the command’s reaction to the incident, but the message sent to her line has remained unanswered for days despite showing as delivered.
The Kogi State Police Command is yet to issue any statement or comment on Abubakar’s ordeal.