Pius Nsabe
An Ibadan based non-governmental organisation, Save the Poor and Needy Charity Initiative (SPANCI), has drawn the attention of the police hierarchy, the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP), and other relevant authorities to what it described as an unprofessional conduct of some police personnel around Alakai-Gbagi area on Tuesday morning, leading to the murder of a young school boy taking the Senior School Certificate Examination.
In a video on his Facebook post which also showed the corpse of the deceased, the Global President of SPANCI, Dr Eziekel Yemi Bello (JP), wrote: “Dear IGP and stakeholders, kindly investigate the above case as allegedly reported that a man was taking his children to school this morning and some alleged police officers while allegedly chasing yahoo boys and/or traffic law offenders, started shooting indiscriminately and a bullet hit this little boy and killed him.
“According to the report, it was confirmed that the officers conducted themselves unprofessionally which led to the death of this little boy whose father said he has been taking care of together with his siblings, and had refused to remarry since their mother left 7 years ago”, Bello said in the post.
In the meantime, eyewitness reports say that a policeman, while trying to shoot at a vehicle they were chasing along Gbagi Market road in Ibadan, hit an innocent student with a stray bullet while he was in his father’s car. The student was said to have been rushed to Welfare Hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
It was reported that the student and his twin were on his way to the exam when the incident occurred.
Meanwhile, members of the community where the event occured staged a protest with the corpse to the Oyo State Secretariat to inform Governor Seyi Makinde of the incident.
As of the time of filing in this report, the Oyo State Police Command was yet to release an official statement on the matter.
