"We will look into it," says the Force Spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adejobi.
A man in Nasarawa State, North-central Nigeria, has narrated how police officers arrested him, threw him into prison and left him deformed while torturing him on the suspicion that he was a crime suspect.
The man, Solomon Bawa, spoke when he appeared on Berekete Family, a popular human rights broadcast station in Nigeria.
A video clip showing the man narrating the incident was uploaded on the station's YouTube page on 27 October.
The 21-minute clip was also uploaded on X handle (formerly Twitter) by an X user, Somto Okonkwo.
How it happened
Mr Bawa, a farmer and a pick-up truck driver, is a resident of Ankara in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
He said he was transporting maize, charcoal and other materials to a market for sale in 2019 when one of his tyres got deflated, which prompted him to visit a repairer's shop in Masaka, another community in the council area of the state, to fix the tyre.
While strolling into a shop owned by an Igbo man to buy an item, he was accosted by some armed police operatives inside their operational vehicle. The police operatives requested to know his name, he said.
After he introduced himself and was asked to go, the officers immediately called him back and asked him if he knew anyone by the name Bawa Gombe, believed to be a crime suspect, he said.
"No, I don't," he told the officers.
The operatives, Mr Bawa said, ordered him to enter their vehicle. They drove him to Masaka Police Divisional Headquarters, where they kept shouting at him and insisting that he must tell them the "truth" about his identity.
"I said my name is Solomon Bawa," Mr Bawa said he responded to the operatives.
Mr Bawa said he was forced to remove his belt and shoe, and he was afterwards thrown into a police cell.
"I come dey shout say wetin me I do? As I come shout, dey come beat me, slap me two times, still carry me go inside cell," he spoke in Pidgin English, while recollecting what happened.
Mr Bawa said the following day, he was taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department in Lafia, where he was severely beaten.
"At the state CID, dey come start to dey beat me say if no be me be Bawa Gombe, where Bawa Gombe dey. I say my own name na Solomon Bawa."
His mother would later come to the police facility after the Igbo man who owned a shop contacted and informed her about what happened to her son. Mr Bawa said his mother told the operatives that she gave birth to him and also named him Solomon Bawa, but the operatives ignored her.
Deformed hand
Mr Bawa said the police operatives later began to beat him again. He said when the pain from the beating became unbearable, he lifted his right hand to shield himself. A police operative, identified as Usman Angbashi, an inspector, hit him hard on the right hand, forcing his shoulder blade to pull off.
According to him, as he shouted and struggled in pain, the inspector threatened to go after his left shoulder. And within seconds, the inspector hit him on his left hand, he said.
Mr Bawa said his right hand had since remained deformed after the incident.
In the video, the victim is seen struggling to move his right hand. Ahmed Isah, the anchor of the Brekete Family, apparently moved by Mr Bawa's story, stood up from the podium, and walked down to where Mr Bawa sat. "Aaah, dey hand dey shrink-o!" Mr Isah said as he tried to examine the man's right hand.
Forced to accept false identity
Mr Bawa continued his narration. He said when it was clear that the torture could worsen and ultimately result in his death, another police operative, identified as Ado Bature, also an inspector, advised him to accept that he was Bawa Gombe, lest Mr Angbashi would torture him to death.
Mr Bature told Mr Bawa that if he stayed alive and was taken to a court he (Bawa) could disclose to the judge that he was forced to admit that he was Bawa Gombe.
Mr Bawa told the Brekete Family that as soon as he falsely accepted to Mr Angbashi that he was Bawa Gombe, the inspector asked him the whereabouts of a motorcycle he had accused him of stealing, but he told him he had not stolen any motorcycle.
Again, because of too much beating and the fear of being tortured to death, Mr Bawa falsely admitted that he stole the motorcycle, he said.
"But I never thief before," he said in the video.
Mr Bawa said he stayed in the police cell for two months, without being taken to a hospital for treatment or being taken to any court.
Devastated mother dies
Mr Bawa said when his mother returned to check up on him, she was devastated to see him in such a terrible condition at the police facility. She would return home and die, apparently out of frustration.
After his mother's death, the victim had no one to visit him. He would stay all night and day at the SCID with no one to console him.
Mr Angbashi would later transport the victim from the state CID to the Correctional Centre, Lafia. He stayed three for years without trial.
After the controller complained that the victim was sick, the officer subsequently asked the authorities of the prison to transfer the victim to another correctional facility at Keffi, where he spent one year.
Saving grace
At the Keffi correctional facility, while Mr Bawa's deformed hand was being pressed with hot water, a female lawyer, C.Y. Marshal, walked into the facility and enquired what happened to his hand.
After the victim narrated his story, the lawyer went to the victim's school and community where she obtained his primary and secondary school certificates, which confirmed that he is Solomon Bawa, not Bawa Gombe.
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The lawyer took up Mr Bawa's case to a high court in the state, and upon being summoned, Mr Angbashi, the police operative who tortured Mr Bawa, told the court that the victim was not the wanted Bawa Gombe.
Meanwhile, at that time, Bawa Gombe had been arrested and released from the SCID.
The police operative told the court that Mr Bawa's hand was damaged during torture, which the operative said was part of their investigations.
And because the police operative failed to appear in subsequent court sessions, the court released Mr Bawa on 31 August and adjourned the case until 4 October.
Mr Bawa said after the operative again failed to appear in court on 4 October, he was advised to go to the Berekete Family to speak out and seek justice.
Police react
Reacting to the video, the Force Spokesperson, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, on Sunday, said given that his office works "closely with Berekete Family Radio," the station's founder, Ahmed Isah, would have contacted the police over the incident.
"We will look into it," Mr Adejobi, an assistant commissioner of police, assured.
