JTF CHECKPOINTS TURN SOUTH-EAST ROADS INTO FEAR ZONES AS MOTORISTS ALLEGE EXTORTION, PHONE SEIZURES, THREATS TO KILL AND ATTEMPTS TO FRAME TRAVELLERS AS IPOB MEMBERS

Motorists and travellers across parts of Nigeria’s South-East, particularly Imo State, have accused personnel of the Joint Task Force (JTF), comprising soldiers, police officers and operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), of alleged extortion, harassment, unlawful searches of mobile phones, threats to kill and attempts to frame innocent travellers as members or sympathisers of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN).

ChroniclesReporters, in a review of accounts, audio recordings, videos and financial transaction evidence previously obtained and reported by SaharaReporters, also independently examined the allegations and found a recurring pattern in the testimonies of motorists and travellers who described encounters with security personnel at different checkpoints across Imo State.

The accounts reviewed by ChroniclesReporters indicate that some motorists were allegedly stopped, ordered out of their vehicles, compelled to surrender their mobile phones and subjected to searches of private conversations, photographs and banking applications.

In some of the allegations, travellers claimed they were forced to transfer money directly into bank or POS accounts before being allowed to continue their journeys.

One victim recounted an encounter while travelling with his elder brother from Aba, Abia State, to Asaba, Delta State.

According to the victim, the incident occurred in the afternoon when their vehicle was stopped at a checkpoint. He said he had earlier taken photographs of a signboard bearing the name Umuhu Comprehensive Secondary School but deleted the photographs before the encounter.

“They stopped our car, because my elder brother was driving. They told him to come down with his papers. The car was a new car and the papers were still complete. They took him to an old fuel station there where their leader was,” the victim, who requested anonymity, said.

He said he was sitting at the back of the vehicle when a soldier ordered him to come out with his phone and meet the officers’ leader.

“I rolled down the glass, and the soldier there saw me and said I should come down and meet their leader with my phone,” he said.

The victim said he activated his phone camera while approaching the officers and allegedly witnessed another traveller being subjected to a search of his mobile device.

“I met the man (officer) when he was still searching another guy’s phone trying to transfer money from the guy’s bank app to their POS but it was not working, and he was telling him to borrow N10,000 from his driver and give them so that he could allow him to go,” he alleged.

He said an officer subsequently seized his phone but that he was eventually allowed to leave after his brother allegedly paid the security personnel.

“He (the officer) then snatched my phone but I wasn’t extorted because my brother’s papers were complete. My brother just gave them N10,000 or more,” he said.

Another traveller told ChroniclesReporters that he had encountered the same security personnel at four different checkpoints in Imo State and had allegedly been forced to part with money on two occasions.

“I have an encounter with these people at four different checkpoints. They have extorted me in two, though it was not a huge amount of money, because anytime I encountered them, they would find a way to collect at least N1,000 or N5,000 from me,” he said.

According to the traveller, some of the checkpoints were previously located along Okigwe Road and the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway but had subsequently shifted to areas around Ideato and Umuobom.

He also described an encounter along the Aba-Owerri Road while travelling towards Nnewi, Anambra State, during which he alleged that one of his companions was taken away by security personnel.

“One of the guys who was with us in the car didn’t go with us to Nnewi because they dragged the guy into their Hilux truck and ordered the driver to go,” he alleged.

However, he said his most frightening encounter occurred after officers allegedly discovered that he was wearing camera-enabled glasses.

“One of them threatened that he would kill me there and bury me inside the bush there and nobody would say anything about me,” he alleged.

The traveller further alleged that the officers dragged him into a bush and attempted to create circumstances under which he could be shot and subsequently labelled an IPOB or ESN member.

“They dragged me into one bush there, pushed me to run so that they would shoot me and claim that I was an ESN member. They ordered our driver to drive far from there so he wouldn’t have seen what was happening,” he said.

He said he refused to run into the bush because he feared he could be killed.

“When they couldn’t succeed, one of them forcefully collected my phone and started searching,” he said.

According to the traveller, officers searched his conversations and found communications involving police officers and soldiers known to him. He alleged that they eventually released him after failing to find evidence linking him to an armed group.

“One of them said they should leave me to go. But they must check if I record anything about them and delete everything and leave me to go. They searched but they didn’t see anything I recorded, they gave me my glass back and asked me to go,” he said.

He alleged that the officers were not initially interested in beating him but wanted to create an opportunity to shoot him.

“They didn’t want to beat me. They only wanted to shoot me. They pushed me into the bush, ordered me to remove my clothes. I removed my top, and they were pushing me into a valley there,” he alleged.

The traveller said he resisted because he believed going into the valley could result in him being killed and subsequently labelled an unknown gunman.

“I insisted that I was not going down to the valley because I knew that if I had gone down there, they must definitely shoot me and tag me an unknown gunman,” he said.

He also alleged that another encounter at Ngokpala ended with him being slapped, forced into a security vehicle and compelled to pay N10,000.

“When I encountered them there, they slapped me and pushed me into their vehicle, and collected N10,000 from me, which was the last money in my OPay account,” he said.

An audio recording reviewed by ChroniclesReporters captured another confrontation in which a police officer accused a traveller of recording security personnel at a checkpoint.

“Won’t you shut up your mouth there!” the officer was heard warning before ordering the traveller to surrender his phone.

“You, give me that phone!” the officer demanded.

After taking the device, the officer allegedly told the traveller, “Just say bye-bye to it,” before informing a colleague, “I have seized it already.”

The officer then accused the traveller of recording the operation for IPOB.

“You are recording me? You can end yourself here! Because I don’t know who you are. Who are you? Where are you coming from, Anambra right? … you want to go and give it to your IPOB or whatsoever so that they can come and attack me right?” the officer asked.

The officers subsequently ordered the traveller to unlock his phone.

“See, this bastard is recording us,” one officer was heard saying, while another asked, “Was he recording?”

The officer holding the phone replied, “I seized it. Come and see, record in process.”

Another officer was then heard ordering the victim to remove his clothes.

The traveller said the alleged encounters had become so frequent that he had adopted measures to prevent security personnel from accessing substantial funds in his bank accounts whenever he travelled.

“Because of this people, now if I’m travelling I have to send any money that is in my account to my brother or my sister or my wife, when I reach where I’m going to, they can send it back to me,” he said.

“I will only have small cash at hand that will take me to where I’m going. That is what I have been going through.”

In another video originally obtained by SaharaReporters and reviewed by ChroniclesReporters, a soldier and a police officer were seen stopping a motorist wearing AI-powered camera glasses.

“Bros, come down and don’t run (sic) like a stolen car!” the soldier ordered.

The motorist alighted and opened the trunk of his vehicle, but the police officer immediately demanded that he remove the glasses.

“Oga remove that glass! I’m talking to you, remove that glass! Why are you wearing camera glass on us? … You are even recording us. You are recording on the road. Give me the glass!” the officer said.

The officers subsequently took the motorist to their leader, who was seated inside an operational vehicle.

“Oga, this person is using camera glasses,” the officer told the leader.

The leader asked whether the glasses were recording. Although both the officer and motorist said the device was not recording, the leader became angry.

“Is this what we would be seeing on this road today? What is you people’s problem? Come here before I slap you! … Why won’t you go and video Tinubu in Aso Rock? Let me see your app where that camera is! Don’t provoke me!” he was heard saying.

The JTF leader was identified as Stanley Chimezie, described by a source as an NSCDC officer attached to the task force. The same source identified him as the officer allegedly captured in another video demanding that a traveller borrow N10,000 from his driver before he could be released.

The motorist involved in the camera-glasses incident had reportedly flown into Imo State from Abuja and was travelling from the airport towards Umuahia, Abia State, when he encountered the JTF around 7½ Junction on the Obowo Road.

Financial evidence reviewed by ChroniclesReporters allegedly shows that the traveller transferred N204,000 to a Moniepoint account bearing the name Onyebuchi Chika Gift at about 3:32pm on July 24, 2026.

The traveller said he was forced to source money from other people because he had already emptied his account.

“I had to call someone to send N100,000 to this account because I emptied the account before then. It was the driver carrying me that transferred N100,000 to the account,” he said.

“I had a balance of N64,000, so he sent N100,000 to the account, then someone else sent me N50,000, before I was able to transfer the N204,000 to the POS account with N4,000 charge.”

The allegations examined by ChroniclesReporters raise serious questions about the conduct of security personnel operating checkpoints in the South-East, particularly in areas where security agencies are conducting operations aimed at combating attacks and criminal activities attributed to IPOB and ESN.

While security agencies have a legitimate responsibility to protect lives, prevent attacks and identify individuals suspected of involvement in armed activities, the allegations made by the travellers raise concerns over the possibility of innocent civilians being subjected to intimidation, financial exploitation and criminal labelling without due process.

The alleged searches of private phones and banking applications are also particularly troubling because mobile devices often contain sensitive personal, professional and financial information.

The accounts reviewed by ChroniclesReporters suggest that some travellers may now be taking extraordinary precautions when travelling through parts of the South-East, including transferring their savings to relatives before embarking on journeys in anticipation of possible demands for money at checkpoints.

For residents and motorists who depend on the region’s major roads for business, family and commercial activities, such allegations could further deepen public distrust of security operations and increase anxiety among road users.

The allegations, however, remain unproven claims against the personnel involved and should be subjected to a transparent investigation by the appropriate authorities.

ChroniclesReporters also contacted the Imo State Police Command for its response to the allegations.

The command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Okoye Henry, did not answer calls made to his mobile phone at the time of filing this report.

The command’s response, if received, will be published to ensure that the security agencies and officers accused of wrongdoing have the opportunity to address the allegations.

ChroniclesReporters recognises the importance of security operations in the South-East and the dangers faced by personnel confronting armed groups. However, allegations of extortion, unlawful phone searches, threats of extrajudicial killing and attempts to falsely implicate civilians in terrorism-related activities are matters that cannot be ignored and deserve credible, independent investigation.