DESPITE assurances by Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Afeez Ringim, that his men and officers would ensure the safety of life and property as workers and citizens from all walks of life occupy streets across Nigeria to denounce the removal of fuel subsidies, some of his trigger-happy operatives open unprovoked gunfire at under-aged children in Lagos on the first day of the mass protests.
The policemen allegedly moved in a convoy of three pick-up vans marked “Rapid-Response Squad” and reportedly opened fire at children who were playing soccer on abandoned roadway in Ogba, Ikeja. One of them, Ademola Aderinto, was hit and later died of injuries sustained, even as several of his colleagues were injured.
The killing was allegedly carried out by one CSP Segun Fabunmi and Victor Okafor, the DPO of Pen Cinema police station driving a vehicle with registration number RS 101 LA. The police shot and killed young Mr. Ademola Aderinto after brutally torturing him on the street, even as alert citizens snapped photos of their brutal acts. The incident brings to six the number of fatalities so far recorded since the protests began across the country a few days ago.
Although an irrational rule that forbade hospitals from attending to gunshot wounds without “police report” was allegedly scrapped recently, no hospital agreed to treat the victims. Eye witnesses said that the feeling murderers, the policemen, were blaming the officer who pulled th trigger as they escaped.
From Lagos to Port Harcourt, Ado-Ekiti to Abuja, Lokoja to Asaba, Enugu to Kaduna and Kano, Nigerians came out int heir millions, occupying streets, singing and drumming to thaw the stubborn resolve of the Jonathan Administration on the need to remove the roundly criticized removal of fuel subsidies.
Also in the city of Kano in northern Nigeria, a teenager was hit by police bullet.
