Several motorists and travellers have accused personnel of the Joint Task Force (JTF), comprising soldiers, police officers and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps operating at checkpoints across parts of Nigeria’s South-East, particularly Imo State, of extortion, harassment, unlawful searches of phones, threats to kill them and attempts to frame them as members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The victims, who spoke to SaharaReporters and whose accounts were supported by video and audio evidence obtained by the newspaper, alleged that JTF personnel routinely stop motorists, demand access to their phones and, in many cases, force them to transfer money to bank accounts or Point-of-Sale (POS) operators before allowing them to leave.
One victim recounted how he and his elder brother were stopped while travelling from Aba, Abia State, to Asaba, Delta State.
“On that very day, almost afternoon, we were on our way from Aba to Asaba. When we got there, I took some pictures of a signboard written Umuhu Comprehensive Secondary School, but I deleted the pictures,” the victim, who requested anonymity, said.
“They stopped our car, because my elder brother was driving. They told him to come down with his papers. The car was a new car and the papers were still complete. They took him to an old fuel station there where their leader was.
“I was seated at the back. I rolled down the glass, and the soldier there saw me and said I should come down and meet their leader with my phone.”
The victim said he activated his camera while approaching the officers and witnessed an officer searching another traveller’s phone.
“I met the man (officer) when he was still searching another guy’s phone trying to transfer money from the guy’s bank app to their POS but it was not working, and he was telling him to borrow N10,000 from his driver and give them so that he could allow him to go.”
He said officers seized his phone but eventually released him after his brother allegedly paid them.
“He (the officer) then snatched my phone but I wasn’t extorted because my brother’s papers were complete. My brother just gave them N10,000 or more,” he said.
Another traveller said he had encountered the same security personnel at four different checkpoints in Imo State and had allegedly been extorted twice.
“I have an encounter with these people at four different checkpoints. They have extorted me in two, though it was not a huge amount of money, because anytime I encountered them, they would find a way to collect at least N1,000 or N5,000 from me,” he said.
He said the checkpoints had previously been located along Okigwe Road and the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway but had since shifted to areas around Ideato and Umuobom.
The traveller also described an encounter on the Aba-Owerri Road while travelling to Nnewi, Anambra State, during which one of his companions was allegedly taken away in a JTF vehicle.
“One of the guys who was with us in the car didn’t go with us to Nnewi because they dragged the guy into their Hilux truck and ordered the driver to go,” he said.
His most frightening encounter, he alleged, occurred after officers discovered that he was wearing camera-enabled glasses.
“One of them threatened that he would kill me there and bury me inside the bush there and nobody would say anything about me,” he said.
According to him, the officers dragged him into a bush and allegedly attempted to create an opportunity to shoot and label him a member of IPOB or its militant wing, Eastern Security Network (ESN).
“They dragged me into one bush there, pushed me to run so that they would shoot me and claim that I was an ESN member. They ordered our driver to drive far from there so he wouldn’t have seen what was happening,” he said.
He said he refused to run into the bush and was eventually subjected to a phone search.
“When they couldn’t succeed, one of them forcefully collected my phone and started searching,” he said.
According to the victim, the officers found his conversations with his police officers, and soldier friends, and eventually released him after failing to find evidence linking him to an armed group.
“One of them said they should leave me to go. But they must check if I record anything about them and delete everything and leave me to go. They searched but they didn’t see anything I recorded, they gave me my glass back and asked me to go,” he said.
“They didn’t want to beat me. They only wanted to shoot me. They pushed me into the bush, ordered me to remove my clothes. I removed my top, and they were pushing me into a valley there.
“I insisted that I was not going down to the valley because I knew that if I had gone down there, they must definitely shoot me and tag me an unknown gunman.”
He alleged that another encounter at Ngokpala ended with officers slapping him, forcing him into their vehicle and collecting N10,000 from him.
“When I encountered them there, they slapped me and pushed me into their vehicle, and collected N10,000 from me, which was the last money in my OPay account,” he said.
A voice note obtained by SaharaReporters captured another confrontation in which a police officer accused the traveller of recording the checkpoint.
“Won’t you shut up your mouth there!” the officer warned before ordering, “You, give me that phone!”
After seizing the phone, the officer said, “Just say bye-bye to it,” and told a colleague, “I have seized it already.”
The officer then accused the traveller of recording the operation for IPOB.
“You are recording me? You can end yourself here! Because I don’t know who you are. Who are you? Where are you coming from, Anambra right? … you want to go and give it to your IPOB or whatsoever so that they can come and attack me right?” he asked.
The officers subsequently ordered the traveller to unlock his phone. One officer said, “See, this bastard is recording us,” while another asked, “Was he recording?”
The officer holding the phone replied, “I seized it. Come and see, record in process.” Another officer then ordered the victim to remove his clothes.
The traveller said the alleged pattern of extortion had forced him to keep little money in his personal bank accounts whenever he travels.
“Because of this people, now if I’m travelling I have to send any money that is in my account to my brother or my sister or my wife, when I reach where I’m going to, they can send it back to me,” he said.
“I will only have small cash at hand that will take me to where I’m going. That is what I have been going through.”
In another video obtained by SaharaReporters, a soldier and a police officer were seen stopping a motorist wearing AI-powered camera glasses.
“Bros, come down and don’t run (sic) like a stolen car!” the soldier ordered.
After the motorist alighted and opened his vehicle’s trunk, the police officer demanded that he remove the glasses.
“Oga remove that glass! I’m talking to you, remove that glass! Why are you wearing camera glass on us? … You are even recording us. You are recording on the road. Give me the glass!” the officer said.
The officers took the motorist to their leader, who was inside an operational vehicle. “Oga, this person is using camera glasses,” the officer told the leader.
The leader asked whether the device was recording. After both the officer and motorist said it was not, he became angry.
“Is this what we would be seeing on this road today? What is you people’s problem? Come here before I slap you! … Why won’t you go and video Tinubu in Aso Rock? Let me see your app where that camera is! Don’t provoke me!”
The JTF leader was identified as Stanley Chimezie, described by a source as an NSCDC officer attached to the task force. The source also identified him as the same officer who was captured in a video demanding that another traveller borrow N10,000 to secure his release.
The motorist had flown into Imo State from Abuja and was travelling from the airport towards Umuahia, Abia State, when he encountered the JTF around 7½ Junction on the Obowo road.
Evidence obtained by SaharaReporters indicates that the traveller was allegedly forced to transfer N204,000 to a Moniepoint account bearing the name Onyebuchi Chika Gift at 3:32pm on July 24, 2026.
“I had to call someone to send N100,000 to this account because I emptied the account before then. It was the driver carrying me that transferred N100,000 to the account,” he said.
“I had a balance of N64,000, so he sent N100,000 to the account, then someone else sent me N50,000, before I was able to transfer the N204,000 to the POS account with N4,000 charge.”
SaharaReporters’ efforts to obtain the reaction of the Imo State Police Command were unsuccessful at press time. The command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Okoye Henry, did not answer calls made to his mobile phone.
(SaharaReporters)
