SHOCKING: DELSU Students Lynched

Policemen attached to
the Badagry Police
Division, Lagos State,
and some hoodlums have been
accused of killing a 25-year-old
undergraduate of Delta State
University, Ifechukwude Nwainokpor,
and his friend, identified simply as
Kazeem.
They were attacked and beaten to death
by a mob at the Ajara area of Badagry on
the ground that their faces looked
strange in the neighborhood while
policemen watched on.
An eight-minute video clip of the
gruesome killing, which was made
available to PUNCH Metro, showed the
two victims handcuffed together. They
were covered in their own blood and
beaten to death with sticks. Tyres were
also put round their necks.
A correspondent, who visited the family
of Nwainokpor on Tuesday, learnt that
the lynching took place around 3pm on
July 21, 2013 in Ajara area of Badagry, a
community not far from Nwainokpor's
family home.
His father, Samuel, said that his son was
arrested while passing through a street
in the area but a misunderstanding later
ensued and the hoodlums pounced on
him and Kazeem, adding that his son was
a final year student of Geology and
Mining.
Samuel said because there had been a
robbery in Ajara four days earlier, some
of the residents were on the lookout for
strange faces and so when the youth saw
two unknown young men, they accosted
them and an argument ensued.
He said the youth called the head of the
vigilante group in the area, one Asiribo
and it was decided that the boys be
taken to the Baale, Agano Oniyon of
Agamade Ajara. But as they were going,
Asiribo, while trying to return his gun
into its pouch, mistakenly shot himself in
the stomach and died. "Asiribo's death
infuriated the youth, who blamed the
boys for his death. The mob picked up
sticks and beat them to death.
Policemen were there," he said.
The Nwainokpor family berated the
Divisional Police Officer, Badagry Police
Station, Dankoli Mohammed, for the
manner he treated the case. "When the
policemen came to take the corpses,
guns were planted on them. Policemen
at the station told the DPO that they
were robbers. Their corpses were taken
along with that Asiribo to Badagry
General Hospital's mortuary," he said.
The spokesperson for the state police
command, Ngozi Braide, said, "The
incident is quite pathetic. Even if they
were armed robbers, no one has the
right to take the life of another. Why
then do we have the police and the
judiciary? The Nigerian police as well as
the law condemn mob action and jungle
justice. The commissioner of police has
set up a high- powered investigation
body to investigate the matter."