As I begin this piece,
I write with a mind full of anguish, disappointment and distrust. I am
disappointed that the people chosen to protect and safeguard lives and
properties have become the ones hell-bent on jeopardizing the objectives of the
creation of the force. I am angry that the people who are supposed to be the
friends of the people have turned to our enemies. The Nigeria Police Force is
ridden with corruption, evils and more evils. The set of people who are
supposed to maintain laws and orders are the ones enforcing lawlessness. What a
shame! What a gross disappointment!
‘A child who says his
mother will not sleep will not catch sleep himself.’
I have lost my trust in
the Nigerian Police Force.
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| The Seized Van |
HOW THE POLICE LIED ABOUT
THE MURDER OF AN INNOCENT BOY
I visited the Durbar
police station as a concerned citizen and an advocate for justice with three
other comrades. I made my findings and calmly, I listened to the police side of
the story without interruption. It goes thus;
‘A pick up van loaded
with fire-woods was allegedly coming from Aawe road and was going through
Kosobo, Hollywood hotel junction to connect with the Akinmorin road when it was
intercepted by a team of traffic officers (three traffic warden and a
conventional policeman) on duty in a car. According to them, they actually
stopped the vehicle because it was carrying two young boys sitting dangerously on
the woods. They asked the boys to come down and also demanded to see the driver’s
driving license which he couldn’t produce. The driver was asked to drive off to
the Durbar police station but he refused and went into the van to disconnect
some cables. He was promptly arrested and taken inside the police vehicle. The
motorboy was then asked to drive the van, and he obeyed promptly. A traffic
officer was asked to sit with the motorboy and the two boys in the van. As they
were going with the police car trailing behind, the motorboy allegedly lost
control of the van and swerved off the road. The vehicle ran into a ditch and somersaulted.
The occupants of the van (the motorboy, the two boys and the traffic warden)
were allegedly thrown out of the van which had no windscreen.
This immediately
attracted a mob that didn’t attempt to rescue the boys but wanted to lynch the
officers, the officers immediately fled the scene after rescuing their
colleague. A police patrol van was passing through that area at the time of the
incident. The mob incident attracted them and when they got to the scene to
assist the victims, the mob also descended on them. They also fled but one
officer was left behind, Sergeant Amao. He was descended upon by the mob and
asked to take one of the victims who had already fainted to the hospital. A
bike man was flagged down and the policeman accompanied the boy to the
hospital. On getting to the hospital, the boy was immediately taken on a
stretcher to the emergency unit and it was then that the police officer
discovered that the boy was his son. The boy later died.’
My people, that was the
police side of the story as at yesterday morning. I was speechless because the
story was too good to be true. I asked some questions and I got some disturbing
answers. Now, let’s note some points here;
1. The
van was seized because of the two boys sitting dangerously on the fire-wood.
2. The
driver couldn’t produce his driver’s license.
3. The
driver of the van resisted arrest and this prompted them to order the motorboy
to drive it.
4. The
two boys were also asked to sit in the vehicle with the motorboy and an
accompanying traffic warden.
5. The
van had no windscreen and the occupants were thrown out the vehicle during the
accident.
6. The
mob didn’t attempt to rescue the victims instead, they descended on the
officers.
THE INVESTIGATION: THE
DISCOVERY OF THE TRUTH
With my comrades, we
left the station and proceeded to the scene of the incident. We were busy examining
the scene and taking pictures when a guy on a bike, a friend of one of us,
stopped and was eager to give us some information.
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| Myself, Adeyeye Sulaiman and Barr. Goke Esuola at the scene of the incident |
Frankly, this report is
based on over thirteen eyewitness accounts and I am telling you sincerely that
there is no shade of doubt in this piece.
According to this guy,
he was behind the police vehicle trailing the van after it was seized. He had
firsthand information and was a true witness to the scene. He confirmed that
the vehicle was seized when they asked the driver, an old man, to give them an
amount he couldn’t afford. Other witnesses confirmed this.
Our investigation
reveals that the traffic wardens patrol that area regularly and were already
known for their notoriety. They picked that point to extort vans coming from
neighboring villages and farms to collect from their proceeds. One Officer
Jelili, ‘a yellow fever’ (traffic warden) leads the team. They are always seen
on that route on daily basis. The vehicle they patrol with is a blue Nissan car.
The team also includes a yellow-skinned lady. Their mode of operation is to
seize the vehicle of an uncooperative driver and the driver would be asked to
alight while one of the officers would be asked to drive off to the station. That’s
how they have been working.
HOW IT HAPPENED
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| The ditch that the officer ran into |
At exactly 10:38am on
Thursday, 6th of October, 2016, a team of police officers including three
traffic wardens and a conventional policeman were seen at the Kosobo Junction
that links to Akinmorin via Hollywood Hotel junction.
An oncoming pick up van
carrying firewoods was sighted by the officers. They immediately blocked the
road and asked the driver to stop the vehicle. Truly, two young boys were seen
sitting on the firewoods. They officers questioned the elderly driver while he
had to carry these boys on an already loaded vehicle and he pleaded that he
assisted the boys from Aawe.
The officers led by
Officer Jelili (rank unknown) demanded for the the driver’s license which he couldn’t
produce. This gave them an opportunity to demand for a bribe but unfortunately,
the man could only afford a meager 200naira. This infuriated the officers and
ordered that the car be seized.
One of them immediately
went to the driver’s side and started the vehicle. Yes, an officer drove the
vehicle! The driver was heard begging the officers to allow him drive as the
vehicle’s brake is faulty and he was the only one that could handle it. But
they ignored his warnings. Instead, the driver was also asked to sit beside him
and the car was being driven to the Durbar station. The other officers also
went into the Nissan car and were trailing the seized vehicle.
According to eyewitness
accounts, the motorboy was left behind and he was heard shouting ‘Haaa… Brake
motor yen o da ooo.’ (That motor’s brake is faulty ooo) He was also ignored.
The officer driving the
van ran into a ditch and lost control. That was the genesis of the accident.
This happened about a hundred yards to the Akinmorin junction where another
team of policemen led by one Officer Okon regularly set up roadblocks to extort
money from vehicles, even after roadblocks have been canceled.
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| The ditch |
The traffic warden
driving the van was striving to regain the control of the vehicle but according
to the warning of the driver and his motorboy, the brake was faulty. He sighted
his colleagues at the junction and didn’t want to hit them. Instead, he swerved
into a nearby bush very close to the junction.
It was at this point
that the van somersaulted. One of the boys sitting on the van fell off and hit
his head on the ground thereby losing consciousness. This boy died before he
got to the hospital. The other boy was mysteriously under the
vehicle and it took the combined efforts of sympathizers and onlookers before
he was removed. I learnt this morning that he died yesterday morning too,
though it’s still unconfirmed.
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| Spot where the first boy hit his head on the ground and lost consciousness |
The witness accounts revealed
that the officers in the trailing vehicle immediately ran to rescue the
colleagues and fled the scene. The sympathizers were not mobs. They wanted to
help and if the officers had waited to assist them, maybe the boys would be
alive to tell the tale.
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| The driver's cap and one of the deceased's sweater |
The other team at the
junction also fled the scene without assisting the victims but unfortunately,
one of them, Officer Amao (the alleged father of the boy who died that day) was
left behind. The sympathizers immediately seized him and asked him to flag down
a bike to take the boy who had already lost consciousness to the clinic.
Unknowingly, the boy
was actually his stepson.
It was the sympathizers
that actually turned over the van to pull out one of the boys who was lying
beneath it. It was the sympathizers that revived the elderly man after he
fainted.
When these people
protested, they got to Durbar police station and they discovered that the
officers that fled the scene had already changed into muftis acting as if they
were off duty. The only policeman on uniform was Officer Okoi who at that time
was on duty as the station guard.
It was established that
the officers led by Offficer Jelili actually extort commuters plying
Kosobo-Akinmorin road. It is also established that a roadblock exists at
Hollywood Hotel junction and on the day of the incident Officer Okon led the
team that mounted the roadblock.
Kindly note that we
have officer Okon and there is also one officer Okoi.
One other thing, Officer
Amao isn’t the biological father of one of the deceased boys. The boy was
actually his stepson. Shikena. So the police shouldn’t gain sympathy public
sympathy through that.
Like I posted a couple
of days ago, justice must prevail.
Investigation continues
and we will ensure that the officers involved in this atrocities must be
questioned and sanctioned.
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| The vehicle
Special shout out to the three other comrades who found time to pursue justice with me. Thanks so much Barr. Goke Eesuola, Adeyeye Suleiman and Ajeigbe Bolaji for being there.
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