8 police officers arrested after a social media influencer accused them of assault

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested eight police officers for their alleged involvement in the assault and extortion of a social media influencer, Olumide Bakare.

Olumide Bakare, known on Twitter as @__Valking took to the microblogging platform Tuesday, July 14, to accuse police officers from the Ogudu department of a number of horrific things, including forcing a gay confession out of him, threatening his life, extortion, blackmail, and brutality (read here).

He said the assault occurred on Monday, July 13. After his story went viral, he returned to the platform to say that the police have reached out to him and asked him to come and identify the officers who assaulted him. 8 officers have now been arrested in relation to the incident.

Confirming the arrest, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, said the police officers involved would be subjected to the orderly room trial after the conclusion of the investigation into the matter.

He said: “The officers are with us at the provost department at the headquarters. The Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, has ordered that the case be transferred to the headquarters and they were all brought to the headquarters. The victim said three officers were directly involved in the incident, but eight of them were arrested because they are members of a team.

“We arrested every team member to investigate the role that each of them played. Investigation is ongoing and those involved will undergo orderly room trial and if found guilty, they will be dealt with in line with our extant laws.”