A story that claimed that several individual, men, women, and a young boy were detained in a single cell at the Maroko Police Station in the Lekki neighbourhood of the state has been refuted by the Lagos State Police Command.
In a widely circulated video uploaded on Monday by a user named Oyindamola and tweeting as #dammiedammie35 on X.com, a woman identifying as the real Omo revealed how the police had packed her into a cell with other women and some males.
A voice in the video lamented, “Men and women are together in the cell. See small pikin [sic] with children. We don’t know what to do. You people should come to our aid, we are at the Maroko Police Station. We need help right now.”
The lady stated that they were “picked up” by security operatives while they were walking in an undisclosed area in Lekki.
“Last night, they picked us, they arrested us. They said we could not walk because they were raiding. How am I supposed to know they were raiding in Lekki? I’m a victim, please, this is real omo. They said I’m going to prison, for walking in the night. This is too much for me to bear. Does this make sense?” she queried.
A portion of the wall that was damaged and the confinement’s open ceiling were also visible in the video.
In response to the tweet, the command’s spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, in a tweet on Monday, debunked the woman’s story saying the persons were kept in a “holding area where they are visible to officers on duty at the charge room.”
He mentioned that after being kept in a cell, they would all be kept apart and denied access to phones.
Hundeyin wrote, “That is a holding area, where they are visible to officers on duty at the charge room (counter). Once they move into the cell proper, they are properly separated, and they would not even have their phones with them.”
However, in an accompanying video shared by the police spokesperson, five males and five females were seen facing the wall.
The officer in the video said,” This is an open cell. These are children roaming around the streets, that ran away from their houses. The residents of Lekki brought them to the station, and most of them, their parents have come to take them over [sic]. They have only been kept in an open cell at the back of the charge room.”
The video showed the charge room, as the officer said the persons in question “decided” to stay along the passage leading to the male and female cells.
