Posted by The Nigeria Police Force has urged locals to report police officers who examine people’s mobile phones to the authorities for disciplinary action, highlighting how unprofessional it is to search through people’s phones.
ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the force’s public relations officer, made the call on Monday in response to footage showing police officers looking through a passenger’s phone and saying that even though they had been in the force for 14 years, they were still unable to use the same phone.
A police officer was seen in a video posted by user @tadeosun074 of X (previously Twitter) looking through a young male passenger’s phone. In Pidgin, the officer was heard saying, “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 a N250,000 phone, it is N15,000 phone I’m using.”
Then he said, “Go that way, come, carry your bag,” ordering the young man to retrieve his bag off the commercial bus. I urge you to bring your backpack and descend. Before directing another passenger to exit the bus, he carefully examined the passenger’s face.
The Force spokeswoman responded to the tweet by saying, “When you share items like this, do us good to specify location, if possible, date, and time. It makes finding them simpler. This data is rather limited. Therefore, we need further information.
Another X user, @KJexty, responded to Adejobi’s comment by claiming that he had experienced the same police practice along Okene Road in Kogi State while en route to Abuja and that he was forced to pay the police N100,000 before being released.
The user of X wrote:
“When traveling to Abuja, police continue to do this at Okpella, Edo State, and Okene (Kogi State) Road. Last week, I was a victim here, and I had to pay 100,000 simply to get out.
Next, the Force PRO said,
“We will keep going after the bad police officers who are out to ruin the force’s reputation. It’s inappropriate to check someone else’s phone while driving.
It’s actually very unprofessional. As you are aware, we have responded and criticized it on multiple occasions. So please report them to us, and we will investigate.
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