Police arrest, remand journalist over hairstyle

Juliana Francis

A 24-year-old photojournalist, Yinka Badmus, working with Talk Village International, has been arrested and remanded in Ikoyi Prison, for allegedly sporting a hairstyle, which some policemen felt made him look like a cultist.

Badmus, who had just bagged a scholarship, was arrested for committing no crime by policemen attached to the Lagos State Police Command Anti-Cultism Unit. The only crime committed by Badmus, was in wearing a dreadlock hairstyle, which is the fad among today’s youths.

Presently, Badmus, who was alleged to have been badly beaten by prison inmates as a ‘welcoming party batch,’ is now critically sick.

According to his boss, Stephen Oguntoyib, Chief Executive Officer of Talk Village International, convener of the Lens Adventure, a project that attract young people to use filmmakers and photographers as toolkit of advocacy, he received disturbing phone calls from prison warders, urging him to ensure Badmus was granted bail and taken to hospital to ensure he did not die. Oguntoyib disclosed that the calls disturbed and alarmed him.

He explained that Badmus was arrested on December 31, while he eating noodles in the community he lives.

He was arrested by policemen from anti-cultism unit, Pedro Bus stop, Gbagada.

It was gathered that after Badmus was detained, the policemen allegedly refused to allow him to contact anyone.

While Badmus was in detention, trying to convince the policemen that he was not a cultist, friends and family had become frantic with worry, searching for him.

Badmus’ whereabouts was eventually known after a detainee, who was granted bail, contacted one of Badmus’ relatives. He had already spent three days in police detention, contravening the stipulated instruction that every suspect must be charged within 24 hours.

Oguntoyib said: “After days in detention, Yinka was able to send a message to a close relative on January 3. He was found at the station. The information given by the police was that he was arrested at Surulere, Lagos because of his hairstyle.  I was asked to come to Gbagada Police
Station January 4, to bail him and see the officer in charge
of his case.”

When Oguntoyib went to bail Badmus, he was shocked to see the police conveying him and other young men in a Black Maria. The photographer was arraigned at Ogudu Magistrate Court, Lagos and remanded.

Oguntoyib further said: “At the Ogudu Magistrate Court, the resident judge asked that Yinka be granted bail and a lawyer in the magistrate court was attached to us. The lawyer subsequently requested for the following; means of ID proof, house rent receipt, NEPA bill, Company ID
and tax payment for two years. He also received the sum of N10, 000. After this, the lawyer demanded for another sum of N20, 000 for his service, with a promise that he would have a meeting with the judge and thereby effect Yinka’s release. On Tuesday, I called the lawyer, with the intention of submitting the requested documents; so the boy could be released, the lawyer again demanded for another N25, 000 for bail-bond, and also made me to know that I would have to pay police for verification and other processes. Meanwhile, the boy had been remanded in Ikoyi Prison.”

Oguntoyib disclosed that between Sunday, Tuesday and yesterday, he had been inundated with phone calls from prison, alerting him of the Badmus deteriorating health condition.

The national coordinator of the Network for Police Reforms in Nigeria, Okechukwu Nwanguma, furious over the continual incarceration of a promising young man said: “Two things; the police officer was quoted as saying the guy was arrested because of his hair style. Where in the law is a hair style a crime? And why did the police officer go ahead to charge him? Since he was granted bail, why did the lawyer keep making financial demands from the surety, including money for the police not to go and verify the surety's residence? Isn't that unbecoming of a lawyer? The innocent guy is languishing in prison, reported to be very sick- all because of a lawyer's greed.”