Commissioner of Police in charge of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Ahmed Sanusi, has charged Abuja residents not to allow any police officer search their phone upon arrest.
Sanusi gave this charge on Monday while addressing newsmen in Abuja, stressing that no police officer has the right to search people’s phones.
He asked FCT residents to quickly raise an alarm when faced with such a situation, assuring that the FCT police operatives would immediately rise to salvage the situation.
“Don’t allow any police officers to search your phone and we’re saying this due to the abuse and extortive tendencies of some of our officers.
“It has been instructed that nobody should search any phone, especially when you just arrest somebody on the road and you start searching the person’s phone, suspecting that he is an internet fraudster.
“This does not negate the fact that phones are also being used to commit crime. But of course, before such a thing can happen, the person must have committed the crime, must have been properly arrested and brought to the station, then when trying to uncover some evidence, you can search to see whether the phone or other items are being used to perpetuate the crime.
“But for you to just stop anybody on the road and say bring your phone, let me search, is not legal.
“If any policeman stops you on the road, according to the instructions of the Inspector-General of Police, which we are bound to obey to the last of it, don’t open your phone, resist and ask other people to help you call the police. You will see our men there,” he said.
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