Akah Nnani, the Nigerian actor, has narrated how he was allegedly harassed by operatives of the Lagos police command who he said accused him of possessing charm.
In a video shared via his Instagram page on Tuesday, he said the policemen had stopped a taxi conveying him along Ring Road bridge in Ikoyi and asked him and the driver to come down.
Nnani claimed the officer who stopped them initially appeared calm but suddenly became violent as he cocked his gun and asked them to park.
The actor alleged he had thereafter confronted the officers for pointing a gun at them without any evidence of a crime.
Nnani said after initial hesitation, that the officers, which he said were about 20 along the route, agreed to conduct a search on him.
The actor said in the process, that the policemen accused him of carrying a charm, citing his house key holder designed like a native drum.
“I was coming to my family in an Uber. These guys flagged the car down, looked inside and smiled at the driver. Before you know what was happening, the guy literally cocked his gun and moved to the front of the car and he is pointing his gun at us and says ‘move to the side, park park’,” he said.
“At this point, I was already angry because I was like ‘why will you cock your gun at me? Why will you cock your gun at a civilian? Why will you use your gun to stop someone who isn’t armed, harmful and isn’t confirmed a criminal? Why did it have to get there? At this point, he was using his gun to get his face up and saying ‘move move’.
“At this point, I was angry and I wound down and I said ‘why are you pointing your gun at me?’ He became pissed and angry and asked why I am questioning him.
“But at this point, I was like ‘Please can you stop pointing your gun at us? We are not criminals here. If you want us to park we will park’ And he replied ‘Oga you cannot tell us our jobs. We are here to do stop and search.
“Mind you, there were about 20 police there and no official police car. A shuttle is what they were carrying. So if anything happens none of them can be traced. There’s no way we can trace where they came from. And I’m looking at their uniform is SWAT a replacement of SARS.
“They started looking for a way to pin me down… one of the guys said ‘let’s search him’. I poured out all the content of my bag down and said ‘search’. This guy brings out my house keys which have a native drum attached to them and he says ‘this is “jazz”’.
“Mind you, this keyholder was given to me by google to celebrate our culture. At this point, I started laughing and then one of them comes and says ‘ what do you do?’ And I replied ‘I’m an actor’ and he says ‘show me proof’. I showed him my pictures and videos and he said ‘please be going”.
According to him, the officers were originally bent on detaining him until they discovered he was a celebrity and asked him to go.
Nnani called on relevant authorities to address the menace of policemen along the route. He lamented how people in similar situations continue to suffer injustice because they are not popular.
“There are so many young people who were taken from their cars and taken to so many undisclosed places,” he added.
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