Ben Bright Friday, a 21-year-old Nigerian woman, alleges she was unlawfully detained and repeatedly sexually assaulted by an immigration officer at the Akere checkpoint in Badagry, Lagos, during a trip from Port Harcourt to Benin Republic.
On Friday, January 16, 2025, Friday was reportedly stopped by officers of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) at the Akere checkpoint in Badagry, Lagos State, where she said she was unlawfully detained through the weekend and released only on Monday. In interviews with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), she claimed that one officer, identified as Makama and addressed by colleagues as “oga,” repeatedly brutalised, intimidated, and sexually assaulted her over the course of four days. Independent investigations by FIJ traced a phone number linked to the officer to the name Isa Makama, corroborating Friday’s account.
Friday recounted that she passed earlier checkpoints without incident, but at Akere, she and another woman were singled out. “At the first and second immigration checkpoints, I passed through without any issues. But when we reached the third immigration checkpoint in Akere, Badagry, we were stopped. I was sitting in the front seat with another girl, so the officers asked us to get down and started questioning us. When it was my turn, Makama took me to his office. He asked for my name and age, and I told him my name and that I was 21 years old.” She described a harrowing ordeal of beatings, forced nudity, and repeated sexual assault. “He flogged and slapped me. His colleagues were begging him and trying to calm him down, but he persisted. So, I opened my breasts and he pressed them. He then asked me to raise my armpits. After that, he asked me to open my private parts. Even when I protested, he insisted.”