Barely ten days to Christmas, policemen have stolen millions of naira, as far as we know, from Nigerians.

At the beginning of 2024, FIJ documented a series of instances of police brutality, while asking if the year would be any better than 2023 marked by killings, extortion, assault and unlawful detention by the security agency.

The various forms of police brutality that gave birth to the 2020 #EndSARS protests, which called for the dissolution of the SA are still being perpetrated against Nigerians.

The year 2024 has seen kidnappings by police, unlawful detention, harassment and assault, as well as extortion: in thousands and millions of naira.

Rob Michael raised the alarm on X on Saturday, stating that policemen attached to the Enugu State Command extorted N1 million from his younger brother after kidnapping him to an unknown village.

After he spoke out on social media, it was discovered that the officers were attached to the Awkunanaw police division. They kidnapped Michael’s brother who was on his way to Umuahia, Abia State, took him to a Point of Sale (PoS) terminal and forced him to cough out N1 million — for absolutely no lawful reason.

When Michael reported the case to the station, the divisional police officer got to work, facilitated the process of identifying the officers involved and mandated them to refund the stolen money.

In November, a police officer was detained for stealing N10 million from a resident in Bayelsa State.

Four policemen stole N1 million from three corps members in Lagos State in September, another N360,000 from a petty trader also in Lagos, N119,000 from a content creator while N140,000 was taken from a student in Niger State.

Ogwu Chijioke, an X user, also revealed on Saturday that Delta State police stole N750,000 from his brother in-law weeks ago via PoS terminal.

Meanwhile, on December 4, Muyiwa Adejobi, the spokesperson for the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), announced that four officers had been suspended in connection to the stealing of N43.16 million.

The money was said to have been stolen from a total of N74.95 million recovered during an unauthorised arrest in Abuja in 2023. Instead of reporting the actual recovered amount, they reported only N31.79 million and concealed the remaining.

“Forensic intelligence showed that this group of officers conspired and stole part of the money, amounting to N43,160,000, and tasked one of them to move the cash out of the FCT for hiding pending when the heat blows over,” said Adejobi.

In November, Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), told Nigerians to stop using social media to report misconduct by police officers. He said they should rather direct such complaints to the Police Complaints Response Unit.

However, in spite of this plea, the public have used social media to amplify and recover loot.