Ajibola Akinsete, 27, has accused a policeman attached to a mall in Lagos of slapping him because he recorded an assault of a Nigerian by a Lebanese.
Akinsete, who works in a haulage firm, alleged that the policeman attached to Novare Mall in Lekki slapped him for recording the Lebanese beating up the Nigerian.
A video, which has gone viral on the Internet, was said to have been recorded on July 20 and 21, 2018, between 11pm and 12.30am. It showed moments the Lebanese man slapped the Nigerian man on the face and at the back of his neck.
The Nigerian was heard in the video telling the Lebanese man to pay him the money he owed him.
He said, “What is all that, I have been asking you for the money in the mall and you are saying I should go outside.
“I work for you, I clean house for you and you are telling me to go outside; how much is the money if you are bigger than the money, why are you threatening me?”
However, Akinsete, who recorded the incident and posted it on the Internet, alleged that the Lebanese noticed that he was recording the incident, accosted him and tried to seize his phone.
Akinsete said, “I tried to resist but he had already twisted my hand to collect the phone; so, I started shouting, asking why such would be allowed to happen in my country.
“At this point, some security men guarding the mall came to the scene and one of them introduced himself as the Chief Security Officer and said I did not have the right to record what transpired.
“He ordered that I should hand over my phone to him and I refused. He subsequently ordered one of his subordinates to call the policeman on duty.
“On arrival and without listening to my own side of the story, the policeman slapped me and dragged me by my trousers to a police post within the mall.
“When we got to the police post, other security men at the post said that my phone should be destroyed but before they could take my phone from me, I had already posted the video on Instagram.”
The Ondo State indigene added that the policeman eventually collected his phone and went through his social media accounts, adding that the video was deleted from his phone.
He further added that the policeman, who forced him to write a statement, dictated what to write to him.
“I was told what to write in my statement. I was told to write that I would not post the video and I was told to write that the Lebanese man in the video was just playing with his worker.
“When I finished writing the statement, they released me around 12.30am,” he said.
Akinsete added that while driving out of the mall, he was approached by the Lebanese who allegedly offered him money.
Akinsete, who also said he had a meeting with the management of the mall after the video went viral, alleged that the management rebuked him for videoing the incident.
He said, “I had a meeting with them and they said they would not take responsibility for what happened.
“One of the managers was cocky; he asked me why I took the video, saying he did not believe that anybody reasonable would do that and I told him we were in a free world.”
When contacted, the Operational Manager of Novare Mall, Emmanuel Fakinlede, said the Lebanese did not assault his worker, adding that Akinsete was not assaulted.
He said, “The guy was invited and we requested to know what happened. He explained to us and we told him we are going to find out from our team.
“We did find out that truly there was an argument between the Lebanese and the man working for him. It was just an argument, they were not fighting.
“From the information we gathered, the Lebanese man asked the recorder to delete the video and when we look into our footage at the mall, we didn’t see where anybody was assaulted.”
It was learnt that the matter had yet to be reported to police authorities.
