A policeman, identified as Yemi Ojumoola, has been accused of threatening people with his service pistol in public.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the cop was recently caught on camera threatening a motorist with the gun in Ibadan, Oyo State, during a traffic incident.
The video, obtained by our correspondent, showed a woman screaming and daring the policeman to shoot her husband.
Speaking in Yoruba, the woman said, “You want to shoot him? Shoot him. You went to bring a gun from the boot, shoot him. Why did you go to bring the gun from the booth? Shoot him. Useless mad man. If he were your young brother…”
The policeman wore a Fly Emirates shirt with the name tag, ‘Big Boss’ at the back.
He shouted at the woman’s husband and blamed him for not taking the right direction.
“Are you supposed to take this road? Is this the right lane?” he added, as the woman continued to dare him to shoot.
The policeman, on realising that he was being filmed, smashed the woman’s phone on the ground.
Our correspondent gathered that prior to that incident, the policeman had allegedly threatened another group of boys on an estate in the Abule Egba, Agege area of Lagos State with the same gun.
A source stated, “He usually comes to that area to visit a woman. On that day, he was speeding with his car when some youths cautioned him to drive carefully, because he was on an estate.
“He came down from the car and started searching his car for something. The boys did not know what to expect until he brought out a pistol. All the youth took to their heels.
“He left and returned to the estate. He took one of the youth and beat him with the gun. He hit the gun on the boy’s head and blood spurted out. The policeman abused his powers that day and those youths were helpless.”
The source said the police authorities needed to caution the cop before he “mistakenly kills someone with the gun.”
Although PUNCH Metro could not ascertain the unit the policeman was attached to, our correspondent got his contact.
When asked to explain the circumstances he was found in the video, Ojumoola said he did not bring out the gun from the holster and only wanted to scare the motorist.
He said, “There were two people in the vehicle, a man and his wife. I was not the driver of the other vehicle, my sister drove the vehicle.
“On our way going, we saw that the man and his wife came out from the left. I was coming from Lagos and was really tired. When I came down, I started begging him to reverse for traffic to clear. They refused to leave. I only wanted to scare them and probably deflate their tyres.
“The driver’s wife came down and started shouting at me and saying the husband should not come down from the vehicle.
“The man came down and started blabbing. I was then shouting at him to go back. Then his wife started shouting, ‘Shoot him, shoot him’. Where does the issue of shooting come in when you are not an armed robber?”
The policeman said the woman who was driving the car later came down and engaged the other woman in a fight.
Ojumoola denied the encounter at Agege, adding that for the 28 years he had been in the police force, he never had any problem with anyone.
His supposed sister, Mrs Funmi Taiwo, told PUNCH Metro that she was looking for the female motorist, who filmed the incident, to sue her for the injuries she (Taiwo) sustained during the brawl.
She also insisted that the policeman’s gun was in its holster throughout the incident.
The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Bala Elkana, said the policeman was not attached to the command, and asked our correspondent to contact the zonal police spokesperson.
The Zone 2 Police Public Relations Officer, Hauwa Idris-Adamu, promised to react after watching the video and identifying the said officer.
A week later, she did not respond to reminders from our correspondent.

By Samson Folarin