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.
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