Three police officers have allegedly beaten a Kwara State University (KWASU) student to death at Tanke Bridge in Ilorin, Kwara State.
The incident occurred when the victim got off a motorcycle and was approached by the three officers from the Ganmo Division, who then dragged him to the ground.
In September, SaharaReporters had reported that a trigger-happy police officer reportedly shot dead another student of Kwara State Polytechnic, identified as Ishola Abdulqoyum, along Panat Road, a link between Sango and ShopRite in Kwara State.
An eyewitness told SaharaReporters on Friday that the victim had arrived by bike to retrieve N1000 he had already transferred to a Point of Sale (POS) operator.
He intended to give the money to the motorcycle rider who brought him.
“I was with him,” the witness said. “As soon as he collected the money, the officers came out of a tricycle and dragged him down. The deceased kept asking what offence he had committed, but they didn’t let him speak.”
The eyewitness further stated that the victim pleaded, saying he was asthmatic, but the officers ignored him.
The witness said he confronted the officers, questioning why they were assaulting the student. When asked what offence the victim had committed, the officers claimed they had come from Lagos on information about the victim.
“We asked if they were indeed tracking him from Lagos, they should call the headquarters or a divisional station to send a vehicle. They couldn’t give us a clear answer and instead tried to find a tricycle to transport him.”
“It got to a stage where I had to confront them. One of the officers tried to cock his gun. I told him to shoot if they really thought they would get out of there freely, and another officer was saying, ‘Don’t shoot.’ ”
The eyewitness told SaharaReporters that he felt distressed watching how the officers beat and mistreated the victim.
He said the deceased was a gentle and friendly person who frequently came to buy meat from him.
The victim’s friend is a Point-of-Sale operator, and the deceased often visited to play with his friend before leaving.
According to the eyewitness, the victim didn’t quarrel with anyone.
“They were using their guns to hit him on his head, kicking him and handcuffing him. This is when he started to weaken. The deceased drank six or seven bottles of water here,” the eyewitness stated.
He said he told one of the officers that the deceased was an asthmatic patient and shouldn’t be treated so cruelly, but the officer showed no remorse.
“A woman selling groundnuts also intervened, warning them that the deceased was too weak, but they ignored her. One of the officers even said, ‘Let him die. We don’t care.’”
The eyewitness questioned why people entrusted with protecting citizens’ lives would be the ones killing people.
According to him, “The guy truly suffered before he died. One of our people followed the officers as others were insisting they take him to a hospital. The officers told him that if anyone asked what happened, he should say he knew nothing.”
“On their way, instead of going directly to the police station in Ganmo, they diverted. Before they even reached the station, the victim had died.”
He urged Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and the state police commissioner to investigate the incident and arrest the three officers involved.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, another eyewitness mentioned that when the officers tried to forcefully take the deceased away, people stood their ground, insisting he needed medical help.
The eyewitness added that the victim kept asking for water because he was very weak. They gave him some water, but when he lost strength due to the beating, they urged the officers to take him to a hospital.
A frozen food seller who witnessed the incident told SaharaReporters he was asleep in his shop when he heard people shouting.
“I was in my shop sleeping because I sell chicken. When I heard the commotion, I ran to the scene and saw that the victim was one of my customers being beaten.”
He said he challenged the officers, asking what the victim’s offence was to warrant such treatment.
“I told them that even if he was a criminal, they had no right to beat him under the Nigerian constitution. The most they should do is take him to the station and get information from him.
“I asked, ‘Is it after beating him to death that you’ll start asking questions?’ When I tried to intervene, someone asked why I was concerned, and I told them the victim was my customer. Since he’d been coming to buy chicken from me, I’d never seen anything suspicious about him.”
The officers claimed the victim was a criminal they had been tracking for the past three months. The witness replied, “Is that why you want to kill him?”
He told SaharaReporters that he challenged them, saying that if they killed him and ran away, the same police who were supposed to uphold the law would be the ones violating it.
“The deceased was shouting that he was thirsty and could not stand on his own; his eyes had rolled up. When people suggested which hospital to take him to, he kept asking for an inhaler—he was an asthmatic patient.”
He said that when a woman informed the officers that the victim they were beating was asthmatic, one of the officers responded that the victim was pretending.
“I told the officers that we should call his family, but one of them said the victim’s phone was with them and that it wasn’t a matter for the family. I felt sorry for the guy; he was too weak and could no longer stand on his own. At that point, even the officers seemed scared.”
He added that he urged the officers to take the victim to the hospital. Later, one of them who had accompanied the victim returned around 8 p.m. and informed them that the victim had died.
When contacted, the Kwara State Police Command spokesperson, DSP Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi, she confirmed that the two officers had been arrested and detained.
“Two of the officers have been arrested and detained. An investigation is ongoing,” she said.