By Henry Oduah
Reporter
Sometimes they claim it was ‘accidental discharge’, but the fact is that police killing of innocent citizens have got to a head.
Before it used to be the men that had the nerves to pull the trigger on those, especially driver, who refused to part with ‘roger’, which they now see as a right, instead of extortion. Now policewomen have proved that what a policeman can do, a policewoman can do also, and even better.
However, Nigerians are not going to take it any longer.
Muyiwa Ijaduola has joined the countless innocent people who lost their lives in the hands of gun-totting police officers.
Ijaduola, a commercial driver, was allegedly killed by a policewoman in the Igando area of Lagos State.
The cop identified simply as Corporal Taiwo reportedly pushed the father of three into a gutter and hit his head on its edge after futile attempts to extort money from him.
Taiwo wanted N500, but Ijaduola begged that N300 was all he had on him.
It was further reported that Taiwo and her unidentified colleague fled the scene and cooked up the story that Ijaduola was epileptic. But eldest brother of the deceased, Ayodele Ijaduola, has debunked such claim.
“The epilepsy claim by the police is not true. Muyiwa did not have any epilepsy. We do not have epilepsy in our family. The police are free to go to our family house in Ikeji Arakeji, Osun State, to verify that. We are ready to have the autopsy conducted to know the truth. He did not die because of any epilepsy. Till now, we have not seen his corpse,” he said.
Even a cleric, Matthew Abisoye of Healing Power Gospel Church, where Ijaduola worshipped, confirmed that the deceased never had epilepsy.
To worsen matters and probably sweep the issue under the carpet, men of the force allegedly ganged up, arrested and tortured the deceased’s siblings, leaving threats of a second leg battering at the co-tenants. A visit to the deceased’s house showed that his co-tenants had fled for dear lives.
Residents of the area, in anger, protested the killing by blocking the Igando end of the Lagos State University (LASU), Iyana Iba Road, demanding to see his body. And the police have not tendered any reason for hiding the corpse from friends and relations.
Efforts to get the reaction of Okechukwu Nwanguma, Executive Director of Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), provided little success as he was outside the country and had no information on the matter.
The Lagos State Deputy Police Public Relations Officer, Deputy Sperintendent of Police (DSP) Damascus Ozoani, said a post-mortem examination would reveal the cause of the death and that the police would not withhold the corpse for no just cause.
