POS: An enabler for police extortion

Timeless, the IGP has condemned the unholy act of public extortion by the police force and threatened disciplinary actions against those found guilty, regardless of the warning meted out; the raving case of police extortion linked with brutality has refused to be lulled.

Recently the Nigerian police have developed a pipe conduit to enable the extortion of money from citizens in a convenient endeavor, according to the stern warning issued by Usman Alkali Baba, the inspector general of police, point of sales operators (POS) have become hand tools for the senior officers to extract money from innocent civilians in the name of bail, as it has become easier for such trend to be carried out.

The IGP had, recently, instigated the departure of these sales operators from around the vicinity of area commands and stations’, following the intelligence gotten from incessant complaints of police extortion.

The act, widely spread across Lagos and a couple of other states, has become a means to an end for unsatisfied police officers who deem their salaries too sparse to contain their needs, thus making an endgame plan with sales operators to enable extortion, a dent on the integrity of the police force and security of the nation.

The morbid drift is an enabler of security guise for the police, the act of apprehending citizens for minor offenses are minor starting points for the foreseeable extortion. In other words, the use of POS is a mere shield and spear to protect the police from the law while they directly infringe it and hide under the untraceable propensity of the point of sales operators. They collect money from the arrested civilian by requesting it to be transferred to a POS operator; residing around the vicinity or within, in order to avoid being traced and to earth their tracks.

There are, as well, cases where police arm themselves with this POS machines while on patrols or checkpoints for the purpose of easing the transfer of money and evading possible arrest.

Following the reaction of Raymond Tedujaiye, an adept journalist engineered by time,  he said the act is a dastard one and a direct slap, he said it is bad advertising for the police force to enable the operations of POS within area commands.