BENIN CITY — Family of a 23-year-old student of the Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi in Edo State, Saidi Alimi, shot dead a fortnight ago by Mobile Policemen at a check-point in Benin City, yesterday, accused the State Police Command of extra-judicial killing and complicity in the seizure of the corpse and burial of their son without proper investigation and autopsy.
The student was shot during a stop and search operation, on the Uselu-Lagos road in company of three of his friends.
But the State Police Command, through its Public Relations Officer, Mr. Fatai Kiyomi, insisted that the boy was shot dead by the police while attempting to escape arrest over alleged discovery of a gun in the car in which he was in at the time.
Speaking with newsmen in Benin City yesterday, the late student's father, Alhaji Suleiman Alimi said from all available facts at the disposal of the family through eyewitness account and those offered by residents of the scene of the incidents, the Mobile Policemen have failed in their duty by shooting dead an innocent man without an opportunity to defend himself during the stop and search operation and the attempt by the family to recover the body for autopsy failed due to the attempt by the police authority to cover-up their misdeed.
Alimi said, "we have investigated the incident and have discovered with shock that the police have killed our son without provocation and have went a step further to ensure that we don’t get the body for proper investigation or burial. This is an extra-judicial killing that must be probed by the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun. We demand fairness and justice. How can they accuse our son of robbery and still hold onto the body? They have even gone as far as burying the body without autopsy.
“On the fateful day, we gathered that my son was called up by his friends for a get together on a new car for a friend. On their way, they were stopped and ordered down from the car. They complied and a mobile police officer was reported to have tagged them robbers and my son commented that they were not. The officer reportedly said "if you are not robbers, you must be cultists” and shot him at close range. The policemen became the accuser, the judge. When we learnt about the killing, I nearly fainted. The boy I fathered could not have been killed like that. Why can't they investigate the killing and is it a police act to hurriedly bury the body of a suspect without autopsy?We demand justice and appeal to the president and other good Nigerians that my child get justice from the police.”
