After killing the young man, the police went ahead to lie that he was an armed robber, who was killed during a gun battle with officers.
More facts have emerged on how policemen brutally murdered a 27-year-old student of Osun State Polytechnic, Iree, Abiola Oluremi Afolabi, on April 3, 2022, and dumped his body in a mortuary without the knowledge of any of his family members.
After killing the young man, the police went ahead to lie that he was an armed robber, who was killed during a gun battle with officers.
However, findings by SaharaReporters revealed that the Osun State Police Command made the claim in order to cover up the extrajudicial killing of the National Diploma 2 student by their personnel.
Afolabi had visited his friend named Matthew, a phone repairer, at his shop that fateful day and decided later to spend the night at his house when tragedy struck.
Not suspecting danger lying ahead, Matthew's fiancée, who was around at the time, prepared some food for the three of them to eat before going to bed.
But at about 12:30 am, a bunch of policemen from Housing Estate Division barged into the phone technician's apartment and shot Afolabi in the leg without uttering a word.
The policemen thereafter arrested and detained Matthew and his fiancée after the incident.
Refusing to take the young polytechnic student to the hospital for urgent medical care or disclose what his offence was before they shot him, the policemen watched the 27-year-old bleed to death.
The Nigerian security agents thereafter moved his body to the morgue of Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital in Osogbo, the state capital, and abandoned it there for one week until the family found out about the killing from a stranger.
Speaking with SaharaReporters on Wednesday on how the victim’s life was cut short, his lover of nine years based in Switzerland, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed that Afolabi was killed at a time they were making preparations for him to join her in the European country.
According to the young lady, the death of the polytechnic student, who was the second child of his parents, has greatly affected his widowed mother and siblings.
She further disclosed that the police have been unwilling to name and punish officers responsible for the murder of Afolabi despite overwhelming evidence on the ground.
She said, “They killed him for no reason and took away the joy and peace of the entire family.
“After killing him, they dumped his body at LAUTECH Hospital mortuary without informing his family members.
“They shot him in the leg which made him pass out several times before he died. This was after they had detained Matthew and his fiancée.
“The police claimed not to know his whereabouts but meanwhile his car and phone were in their custody.
“The officers who killed him are still in uniform walking freely. We don’t want him to die without getting justice. Those police officers should face the law. We want an autopsy carried out on his body. We want justice.”
The shooting of Afolabi, which led to a protest in Osogbo last week, took a different turn on Monday when the Commissioner of Police in Osun, Olawale Olokode, after the latest discovery, announced that an investigation into the incident would be conducted.
In a statement, the spokesperson for the police in the state, Yemisi Opalola, said, “The Commissioner of Police urges everyone to believe in the police and allow justice to take its course, as he would meet with the state government and civil society organisations to do justice to the matter.
“Investigation to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death of Abiola is ongoing. He promises to make the outcome of the investigation public"
When SaharaReporters called Opalola respond to questions regarding the update on the matter, she said the police were standing with their earlier statement on the matter.
However, days since that promise was made by the police in Osun and more than a week since the extrajudicial killing, the officers responsible have yet to be named by the state command, leaving the bereaved family and friends of the victim to wonder if justice will ever be served on the matter.