Lawless officers stationed at the Nigeria Police Force, specifically at the Ogun State police command headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, are accused of torturing a middle-aged man named Seyi to death.
This incident occurred during a raid in Sagamu, where Seyi and his friend were apprehended and labeled as cultists by the police.
Following Seyi’s death, reportedly a result of torture by the police operatives, his lifeless body was dumped in a morgue without any notification to his family members, according to information obtained by SaharaReporters.
In a disturbing account of the incident, Seyi’s cousin, Anne Akinnagbe, took to her Facebook page to shed light on the harrowing experience the deceased and the family endured at the hands of the policemen at Eleweran, while urging for justice.
She said, “The Nigeria Police arrested my cousin on Monday where he went to charge his phone. It was hot so he had removed his shirt at the front of the house where he sat with another friend. The police drove by and saw them, parked and started questioning them. They said he was a cultist because he had tattoos. Tattoos he got when he went to SA, mostly Bible verses and DOBs.
“They took him to Eleweran from Sagamu. They would later release the person he was arrested with but kept my cousin there. One of his other cousins went and they told him what they would take which was outside bail. I do not have proof of this so it would be his word against theirs, so I’d better skip that part.
“His sister went on Friday to give him food. She got there and they asked her to taste the meal which she did. Then go and bring him, they started turning her round and round. She waited and waited, they didn’t produce Seyi. She went close to the cell and the inmates told her he wasn’t there.”
Akinnagbe noted that shortly after, the policemen called the sister into the DPO’s office and they told “Toyin that Seyi suddenly started talking to himself and was restless, so they took him to the hospital where he stopped breathing.”
“Nigerian Police took my cousin who was hale and hearty, sane to the point of prostrating and begging them that he wasn’t a cultist, they took him on Monday, somehow he had managed to become insane and where they took Toyin to was the mortuary where he was embalmed, lying lifeless and cold.
“Nigeria Police didn’t have anyone to call when Seyi was talking to himself, he had to have died and lying in the morgue, and his sister had to come in and be turned around for hours before they would later take her to the morgue to see him.
“I have been carrying placards for other people, Nigeria Police have finally hit me where it hurts. This one don finally touch me. E don finally reach my family. If Seyi was a cultist, is that why he should end up dead in their custody?
“Seyi was an orphan. We lost his mum, who was my mom’s second sister in 2014. We lost their dad last year. He was the only son and the first of four children. We don’t know where to go from here. They have killed him.”
As of the time of filing this report, there’s been no comment from the Ogun State command police spokesperson, Omolola Odutola, regarding the incident.
| Sahara Reporters
