Policeman knocks Ogun pupil down, community youths demand

A police officer identified simply as Freedom has allegedly knocked down a Senior Secondary School 1 student of Mayigi Community High School, Ilashe, Idiroko, in the Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State, Eniola Adeleye, while trying to arrest a fleeing driver.

The Secretary of the Ipokia Youths Forum, Sulaimon Adeyemi, disclosed this in a statement made available to PUNCH Metro on Thursday.

According to Adeyemi, Adeleye was knocked down when the speeding vehicle of the police officer rammed into her along the road to her school in the early hours of Thursday.

He said, “We, the youth of Ipokia Local Government under the aegis and leadership of Ipokia Local Government Youth Forum are heartbroken by the sad news we received that a police officer popularly called Freedom attached to Nigeria Police Force Area Command, Ilaro,  killed one Adeleye Eniola, an SS1 student of Mayigi Community High School, Ilashe in a hit-and-run accident and he is currently at large. We strongly condemn this barbaric act in its entirety.

“Over the years, we have been faced with Nigeria Police Force’s unprofessional discharge of their constitutional duties that always infringe on the rights of our people, and it has always been proven that men of the police force on our roads in Ipokia Local Government are specially trained to kill, maim, extort our people and take away our rights as citizens of this country.

“The said officer was reportedly chasing a motorist that escaped extortion while he killed the young girl and had other students injured.

“This is one of the many misconducts of policemen on Owode-Idiroko Road. The said officer left Ilaro to perpetuate evil in Ipokia Local Government because  policemen had been left unchecked and they have turned themselves to free rascals that can operate even outside their jurisdictions.”

Adeyemi disclosed further that schoolmates of the deceased student who visited the Idiroko Police Station to express their grievance over the death of one of them were allegedly teargassed by officers at the station who also went to the school to maltreat staff members and students of the school.

“Sadly, the students that lost one of their own to police rascality went to Idiroko Police Station in protest for the death of their colleagues but were faced with a quite unfortunate situation when men of Idiroko Police Station teargassed and beat the protesting students that led to the arrest of some of our comrades that were sent to manage the situation, it took several interventions before they were released to us.

“Similarly, while all these inhumane behaviours of the policemen were playing out; the men of Joint Task Force were deployed to arrest the chaos, but they engineered more harm by entering into Mayigi Community High School, Ilashe, to destroy property of the school and dwellers in the vicinity to the tune of millions of naira while pointing guns to the head of teachers and students; trying to kill them with guns that were procured with our taxes,” the statement added.

He however appealed to relevant authorities to wade into the issue by bringing the said officer to justice and avert further breakdown of law and order.

“To this end, we call on all those concerned to speed up interventions as this issue might metamorphosis into derailment that would further fuel and orchestrate pandemonium between our people and the concerned security formations in our Local Government.

“To avert this ugly situation, we request that the hit-and-run officer be properly identified, he should be prosecuted for manslaughter and inciting public unrest and all illegal checkpoints on our roads should be disbanded immediately as it’s evident that Area Commands and Divisions are not meant to mount checkpoints,” Adeyemi stated.

Efforts made by our correspondent to get the reaction of the state Police Public Relations Officer, Omolola Odutola, proved abortive as her line was not reachable as of the time of filing this report.