Three police officers have allegedly beaten a Kwara State University (KWASU) student to death at Tanke Bridge in Ilorin, Kwara State.

SaharaReporters gathered that 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 SaharaReporters 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.

A 19-year-old father, Aliyu Yaro has reportedly strangled his three-day-old child in Adamawa State.

The accused blamed his questionable action on his economic predicament.

The teenage father was reported to have stolen the three-day-old baby boy from his lover, simply identified as Safiya, murdered him and buried the remains in a shallow grave inside an uncompleted building.

The incident happened on November 7, 2024, at Kwacham, in the Mubi North Local Government Area, according to the deceased baby’s mother.

As gathered, his lover had mounted pressure on him to provide upkeep for her and the newborn.

However, he decided to end the child’s life so as to escape family responsibility.

“It’s true; he’s not been providing for me and my baby since I delivered three days before the incident. I’ve complained and threatened to report him to the authorities.

“So he came to my house on the ill-fated night around 8:30, I left him in my room with the baby to buy water at a nearby store; surprisingly when I returned, he was gone with the baby. I reported the incident to the police, who swiftly got him arrested the following day; unfortunately he had already killed the baby,” Safiya narrated.

The spokesperson for the Adamawa State Police Command, SP Suleiman Nguroje has confirmed the incident, saying, “the couple has been taken into custody.”

He added, “The Adamawa State Police Command has on the 8th November, 2024 apprehended a 19-year-old Aliyu Yaro for allegedly killing his 3-day old baby boy.

“The suspect, Aliyu, who hails from Kwacham ward, in Mubi North local Government, was accused by Safiya his girlfriend of murdering the victim 3 days after she gave birth to him.

“During interrogations he confessed to the heinous crime and took the police where the remain were buried and were exhumed.

“He narrated that, he had impregnated the mother of the deceased who happens to be his girlfriend (now the complainant), and after delivery, she kept calling him to come and carry the baby.

“He said that he went to the house of his girlfriend in the night after calling him and carried the infant and left with him after he had sent the mother on errand.

“He further narrated that he singlehandedly carried the corpse around 9:00pm and buried it in the Girpata area in Mubi,” Nguroje said.

Gunmen suspected to be cultists have shot and killed a member of a vigilante group in Obele community in the Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The victim was a member of a local security outfit called the ONELGA Security Peace and Advisory Committee codenamed OSPAC.

It was gathered that the assailants had earlier razed the house of a councillor in the area while four others sustained gunshot wounds as a result of the shooting on Wednesday night.

One of the survivors of the shooting who gave his name as Eze told newsmen on Thursday that he was at home with his brother when suddenly gunshots rented the air followed by the sound of a motorbike in front of their house.

Eze said the assailants accused them of being informants giving information to security operatives before they were attacked.

He stated, “I stood up and said let me go and check the people. I saw boys working for one man nicknamed ‘Naked’ with guns and immediately told my brother to run. As we started running, they began to shoot at us.

“Now, they shot me, shot my brother, we are like four that they shot. I have not seen one up till now. We called the village if they had seen my brother, and they said they had not seen him.

“Nak€d is from Ibaa community (also in Emuoha). He was said to be on security surveillance, I don’t know. I am not a cultist.”

Continuing, he said, “They (the assailants) said that we were giving information. That is the last thing I heard in the community before I left. I don’t know who I am giving information to.”

Meanwhile, a former councillor in Port Harcourt ward 17, Chigozie Woka, a native of Obele, whose house was attacked and destroyed by the gunmen last Sunday, has also accused the same “Nak€d” of being behind the attack.

Speaking to newsmen, Woka said, “I served as a councillor in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area. What is happening in Obele today is unfortunate. Obele has been having a crisis because of this young man called Nak€d.

“This young man in question is not even from Obele. He is from Ibaa, and comes to Obele to take refuge. He called me on the phone to say I was working with the security agencies to chase him out of Obele. I told him I was not working with anybody because I didn’t have any plan like that.

“It was on a Sunday. I was in Port Harcourt when they called me that he had gone to my house with his OSPAC (vigilante) boys. This young man, if he is called for profiling as an OSPAC officer will not come.

“He went to my house, they told me he scattered everywhere, put the house on fire and I’m in Port Harcourt here. What is my crime? That I am working with security agencies.

Continuing he said, “These are the things happening in Obele. After he scattered my house and set fire to it, I went to the Divisional Police Officer in Rumuji. I have made an entry there.

“Today again, I am surprised that they were calling me that he had gone to my place to shoot some people in my community, that they were working with me and the police to chase him out.

“He shot four people, they can only see three, who are looking for a way to treat themselves. One, I don’t know if he is dead, they are calling me they cannot reach that one.”

While speaking on behalf of Nak€d, the acting Youth Chairman of Omuobu village in Ibaa, Achor Egberuwho, denied the allegation and rather accused Woka of sponsoring cultists to attack and kill Nak€d.

Speaking to newsmen, Egberuwho said, “It is laughable that a person like Chigozie Woka will stoop so low to say such a thing. Chigoze, supported by his paymaster, led this group of rascals to Obele on Sunday morning, if not for the grace of God, Chinanu Eleonu aka Naked would have died. He barely survived.

“Chigozie has been boasting that Obele will know no peace except the CDC chairman position is given to him.

“So the OSPAC are searching for the killers. No house has been razed down. We call on the public to go to Obele to see if any house was burnt and if any other person has been killed except the OSPAC member who was allegedly killed by Chigozie and his gang. Chinanu Eleonu did not destroy any house nor did he kill anybody.

“The OSPAC member who was killed was from Obele. His name I can’t ascertain now. The Rumuji Police Division has taken inventory of it. They are investigating it.”

As of the time of filing this report, our correspondent gathered that the killing of the OSPAC member, reported shooting of four persons and destruction of the house of the former councilor had been reported to the Rumuji Police Division.

When contacted, the spokesperson for the state police command, Grace Iringe Koko, confirmed the killing and the attack on the councillor’s house.

Iringe-Koko however said she had yet to receive information on the shooting of the four others.

She stated, “ Yes, I can confirm that one person was killed and a house destroyed. An investigation is ongoing to fish out the culprits and bring them to book.”