Nigeria police are at it again-Another driver kiled by policeman

Alhaja Fausatu Amusa, the mother of Sikiru, one of the drivers allegedly killed by a police inspector, Mr. Niyi Oladapo, at the Igando area of Lagos State on February 15, 2012, has said life has become unbearable for her since the tragic incident.

Fausatu told a correspondent at the family house at Aiyetoro area of the state on Wednesday that she could not comprehend why the policeman murdered her son.

Crying profusely, she said, “Sikiru was only 28 years old before he was brutally murdered by a policeman attached to the Igando Police Division.

“He was not rich but was very hard working and had promised that he would take care of me at my old age. When he finally got a job as a driver, he promised that he would take care of my needs and I prayed for him.

“I didn’t know that he would die before me. He was supposed to outlive me, now I am burying my own son because of a wicked and overzealous policeman. My life is finished; I have nothing to live for.

The police have stolen my joy. Sikiru was not married and had no child. He died without a legacy because of the wicked policeman.”

Mourners who came in droves to sympathise with the Amusa family, described Sikiru as a gentle and hard working man.

Sikiru and Endurance Omoyaouh who was also killed the same day were drivers at Multiple Covenant Investment Limited.

They were allegedly killed by Oladapo who was in company with two other policemen. The policemen had claimed that the men who were on a motorcycle are armed robbers and had failed to stop when they were flagged down at a checkpoint.

But eyewitnesses at LASU-Igando Road, where the incident occurred, told a correspondent that the victims had no guns and were riding on a commercial motorcycle when they were killed by the policeman.

Fausatu insisted that Sikiru was not an armed robber, adding that the police put the toga on the slain men to justify their killings.

She said, “My Sikiru was not an armed robber, neither did he act like one. Inquire from anybody in our area and they will tell you that Sikiru was a gentle, hard working and friendly person.

“Even when Sikiru had no job, he never stole rather he went to driving school to learn driving before securing a job as a driver. That was how diligent he was.

“On the day of the incident, he had come to bid me farewell before departing for work only for me to be told later in the evening that he had been killed by a policeman.

“If my son had died in an auto accident or was killed by a disease, I would have understood but he was killed by a policeman, who is paid to secure lives.”

Also at the home of Endurance in Iba area of the state, friends and relatives rained curses on the policeman and urged the police authorities to ensure that justice was done.

The cousin of the deceased, Mike Omoyaouh, said the family was pained because the deceased was married but had no child.

He said, “Endurance was like my younger brother; he was just 26 years old when he was shot by the overzealous policeman.

“His wife has been inconsolable since the tragic incident that she had to be taken to her parent’s house. He had never been arrested by the police before and even after he was killed, no arm was found on him, just his identity card and N300. So, I wonder why policemen thought he was an armed robber. His parents are late but he has an aged grandfather.”

Mike observed that the killing of civilians by policemen had risen in recent time.

“These days, it seems policemen are nothing but thieves in uniform who have been given the licence to kill because this sort of thing has become rampant,” he said.

The Managing Director of Multiple Covenant Investment Limited, Mr. Wale Sadiku, said the corpses of the two drivers were now at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital where an autopsy would be conducted on them.

The spokesperson for the state police command, Mr. Joseph Jaiyeoba, had said the three policemen involved in the incident were at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Yaba.

“The three policemen had said on that fateful day that the deceased were blowing a siren on a motorcycle and they (policemen) mistook them for armed robbers after they refused to stop and shot them,” he said.