Police Officers Torture 20 Year's Old Guard To Death In Ogun State

The Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Lawal Shehu, on Monday, paraded four cops, who were allegedly involved in the death of a 20-year-old guard, Jubril Mohammed, Punch has reported.

The parade happened after members of the deceased’s family and a rights group, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Lagos State, protested Jubril’s death at the zonal office in Onikan, Lagos.

PUNCH Metro had reported that Jubril worked as a security guard at Barka Nigeria Limited, Magboro, Ogun State.

He was arrested by policemen from the Ibafo Police Station over the alleged theft of some company goods.

The victim had reportedly fingered some workers of the company for the crime, saying they had earlier sought his cooperation for a dubious deal.

After his father allegedly paid N30,000 to the police in Ibafo, he was released on bail.

However, a few days after, the victim was rearrested, as the case was transferred to the Zonal Intervention Squad, Obada, Abeokuta, Ogun State.

His father, Ibrahim Mohammed, told Punch that when he visited his son at the ZIS office, he could not recognise him because he had been severely tortured.

A co-suspect, Muhammed, also said he witnessed the torture of the 20-year-old and sometimes carried him from the torture chamber whenever he could not walk.

He alleged that the police team had taken a snapshot of all of the suspects last Monday when Jubril collapsed and was rushed to a hospital where he died.

The zonal police spokesperson, Dolapo Badmos, announced on Sunday that the policemen who handled the case had been detained.

The CDHR and the deceased’s family members, however, held a protest on Monday, demanding justice for Jubril.

The Chairman, CDHR, Lagos State, Alex Omotehinshe, said the group would follow the case to the end.

He said, “It is against the fundamental human rights of a suspect to be tortured before facts or information can be obtained from him. We believe that if we don’t hold this protest, the police will conduct this case as an underground investigation and at the end of the day, they will come up with a different story. They may say they have disciplined the officers and you will see the culprits moving around.

“Our main concern is to get justice for the young man, who was innocent of the charges. We want to give this case proper monitoring. As the police have set up their committee, we are going to monitor everything. We are going to make it a day-to-day activity. We will monitor the autopsy process, the outcome of the police investigation and the role the officers played in this case.”

The victim’s cousin, Saheed Isa, said the police paraded the four cops, who were being detained at the zonal office, before Jubril’s family members.

He noted that Jubril’s father identified two of them.

Isa said the police later led the family members to Abeokuta to see Jubril’s corpse in a morgue.