The New Extortion Tactics By Alleged Military Men.-A Must Read.

''Dear Stella,

Please I will need you to use your platform to alert unsuspecting members of the public of an ugly trend. Below is my experience in the hands of an unscrupulous Nigerian soldier.

The incident only happened on Friday, but as I scribble down every word of this piece, it seemed as though it just happened some few minutes back. Yes, I am shaken; shaken from the bitter and disgraceful experience of an encounter with a Nigerian soldier who swore to protect the very citizens of this nation that pay his wages. Please follow me as I narrate my story.

It was 8.30 pm on Friday,24th October. I was alone in my car heading home. The Mile 2 traffic as usual was a nuisance. It was taking almost 45 precious minutes to navigate the Mile 2-Badagry Express road.As soon as I eased past the bottle neck at Mile 2 under bridge, I felt happy that I was almost home after the hassles. But the happiness didn’t last-i still had the Durbar Junction traffic to contend with before vying off the express way to my Mile 2 GRA Estate residence. A few meters from the Railway terminus (still under construction) a soldier walked past my car, and I applied the brakes instantly .

The soldier walked over to my side of the car and started this tirade that I was trying to kill him. I insisted i saw him cross the road and I applied the brakes. He would have none of that. And before I could say “up soldier” he had jumped into my car, and ordered me to drive down to Ojo Army cantonment. I continued to protest that I had in no way hurt him. He shut me down by lying that i had hurt his right knee! In the truth, it should have being his left knee that was hit by my car fender and not the right knee!

He ordered me to drive down to Ojo Army cantonment, while saying he and his oga were northerners and they hated the Yorubas so much that once they knew i was Yoruba i was dead. I tried convincing him that I could take him to my hospital which is just some few meters away from the scene. He declined and called some guy that he was bringing a Yoruba man to the cantonment.

After much pleading, he demanded for 95k as settlement (20k for the boys at the cantonment, 50k for himself and 15k for his treatment),anything short of that I would end up in the cantonment, he said. As soon as we approached Festac first gate, I told him I was going to use an ATM in Festac, but really, my intentions was to drive down to Festac Police Area Command. This so called soldier struggled for the steering wheels with me, whilst using his fists and whip on me. He insisted that only the ATM at Abule Ado would do.

I beaded my time and played along. A shortwhile later,i drove into Zenith bank branch at Abule Ado and went to the ATM, while he sat back in the car. After fiddling with the ATM keys, I returned and told him the ATM was not dispensing. He became hysterical and insisted he was taking me to the cantonment. I seized this moment of madness and bolted as fast as I could, taking along with me my wallet; car key and phones.

I jumped on an empty okada and rode to Festac Area command, where the DPO quickly assigned three officers to follow me to the bank. For once, I was amazed at the promptness and professionalism of the men of this command. On getting to the bank, the soldier was no where in sight.The security guys at the bank, said he hurriedly left as soon as I ran away. Aside the 5k that was from my pigeon hole, every other item was intact all because the security guys at the bank came out to inquire from him what happened to me and he didn’t have the opportunity to cart those items as well.

The summary of this harrowing experience is that the officers at the Police command informed me this is the new stock in trade of some unscrupulous soldiers who day in day out extort money from unsuspecting members of the public using this same trick. I was told I was quite luck, as another innocent Nigerian was taken to the bush by a soldier and disposed of his phones, money ,stabbed in the arm and left for dead.

Regards,

Lawal, Olanrewaju''

(Phone number omitted by me)

sunkanmi_adcore@yahoo.co.uk

*So sorry about what happened but its possible he wasnt a real Military man,just a thief in the Uniform.People please be weary of this method,Christmas is around the corner.