After
“torturing” a man to death, Nigeria’s secret police, SSS, exploited the
influence of the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, to pay a paltry N1.5
million compensation to the victim’s family, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
At
about 2.30 a.m. on April 4, SSS operatives on the trail of a suspect
accused of cloning the phone number of the Lagos State Governor,
Akinwunmi Ambode, stormed No 37, Aje Street, Pleasure, in the Iyana
Ipaja area of Lagos in commando style.
Residents of the address
said the operatives scaled the fence of the compound, screaming and
threatening as they knocked down doors and shattered ceilings. They
rough-handled residents, who thought they were armed robbers as they did
not introduce themselves, dragged them from their beds, ordered them
out of their apartments and forced them to sit on the dusty ground of
the compound.
About an hour later, when they were done harassing
the residents, Saheed Eyitayo, 34, a friend to the suspect the
operatives were looking for, laid in the dust motionless – beaten to a
pulp by the operatives. One resident, who described the entire
experience as “nightmarish,” told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Eyitayo was so
battered that he couldn’t stand unaided – three operatives had to drag
his him into one of the vans the armed men brought with them.
Unfortunately, that was the last time he would be seen alive in public. The
operatives were led to the residence by Adejoke Ogunbona, the wife of
the wanted man, Rilwanu Jamiu. While on the run for the alleged crime,
Mr. Jamiu, who is now facing trial alongside another suspect, had spent
few days at Mr. Eyitayo’s apartment before moving on to another place in
the Oke Aro area of Lagos, where he was eventually arrested.
It is not clear if Mr. Eyitayo knew his friend was a fugitive when he allowed him to stay at his apartment. Mr.
Jamiu’s wife had visited her husband while he was hiding at Mr.
Eyitayo’s apartment. Though she later confessed that even though she
knew her husband was no longer at Mr. Eyitayo’s apartment, she took the
SSS operatives there.
SUSPICIOUS DEATH
Three days
after the raid, the SSS invited Mr. Eyitayo’s landlord, Mathew Sobiye,
to the Lagos office in Shangisha and told him, for the first time, that
they had carried out the raid on his compound and that Mr. Eyitayo was
dead.
They warned him not to disclose this to anyone, the Septuagenarian said. The
SSS claimed Mr. Eyitayo was resisting arrest on the night of the raid
and tried to jump from the moving van as he was being conveyed to their
office. They said he died from injuries sustained in the process.
But
Mr. Eyitayo’s family would have none of that. They claimed that from
account of fellow tenants at his Pleasure residence, he was already
unconscious when he was handcuffed and carried into the waiting van. They
wondered how an unconscious man in chains could overpower several SSS
operatives and jump to his death. They said if the SSS had nothing to
hide, it shouldn’t have waited for 19 days before formally informing
them of Mr. Eyitayo’s death.
Michael Lasisi, one of Mr. Eyitayo’s
relatives, told PREMIUM TIMES that the SSS waited that long because
they were trying to perfect a fabricated story to hide the fact that
they tortured Mr. Eyitayo to death. “We had gone to the SSS office
several times, and they told us ‘come back you cannot see him.’ Until
finally on the 23rd (of April), 19 days after he was killed, they now
told one of my brothers Oyetunji that he had died. Meanwhile they had
told the landlord not to tell anybody that he had died.
“They did
that so as the days elapsed they would be able to manufacture lies to
cover up the official criminality. They could not tell us what he has
done. They said his friend was part of those who cloned the governor’s
number. They traced the friend to his house but they did not see him. At
a meeting between Mr. Eyitayo’s family and the SSS on May 3 at their
Shangisha office, angered by an SSS attempt to implicate Mr. Eyitayo in
the number cloning scam, Mr. Lasisi and other family members walked out
on the officials of the secret service threatening to drag the agency to
court.
“A SHOW OF SHAME”
Not wanting the story of
the alleged extrajudicial killing by its operatives out in the open,
the SSS approached Mr. Akiolu, the paramount traditional monarch in
Lagos, to appeal to the family of the dead man, after its original
attempt to use officials of the Lagos State Ministry of Justice failed
to assuage Mr. Eyitayo’s family. Some members of the family said they
first suspected that something was fishy when those who had resisted
the antics of the Lagos State officials were exempted from the
delegation to meet with Mr. Akiolu.
“I think the SSS had told the
Oba that some members of the family who gave them a hard time during
the initial discussion shouldn’t be allowed to be part of the
negotiation. The excuse they gave was that the Oba did not want a crowd
in his palace,” a family member, who sought anonymity for security
reasons, said. Several family sources present described the
negotiation at the monarch’s palace as a show of shame. They said the
moment the SSS offered to pay N15 million, some of the most outspoken
members of the delegation suddenly became quiet.
They said Mr.
Akiolu doused the flickering flame of resistance from the family members
when he appealed to them to accept what the SSS was offering in order
to bring a closure to the matter and stop acting like they were there to
sell the body of their dead kin. “The family lawyer put up a
spirited effort to make the DSS [as the SSS is also called] pay more
compensation, but members of Saheed’s family would have none of that,”
an attendee at the meeting said.
“In fact, one of them was
stepping on his (lawyer’s) feet and telling him not to be too hard of
the DSS and to accept whatever the DSS was offering so that the matter
can be settled. The lawyer was almost in tears,” another family source
said. “At a point, they even threatened to fire the lawyer if he would not agree with the decision of the family.”
“One
of them said that they should accept the offer of the DSS because the
body of Saheed was suffering and they needed to bury him urgently to
stop the suffering,” the source said. Another source, however, added
that Mr Akiolu insisted that N10 million be given entirely to the
parents of the deceased. He also insisted that the SSS must pay the
lawyer’s professional fees. According to our sources, the five
million that was remaining from the compensation paid was shared among
members of the deceased’s family involved in the negotiation.
Meanwhile,
even as they agreed to accept the compensation, none of the victim’s
family members had seen his corpse as the SSS did not disclose where it
kept the body. The family did not also press the SSS to conduct an
autopsy on the deceased as required by Lagos State laws for persons who
died under suspicious circumstances like Mr. Eyitayo “The DSS did not
allow the family see the corpse of the dead victim before they forced
the family to reach a negotiation. That was the plan. When they finished
the negotiation, they called Saheed’s uncle to come and look at the
body but he was only shown his legs,” one of our sources said.
CUT AND BRUISES ALL OVER
Family
members who saw Mr. Eyitayo’s corpse after it was released for burial
by the SSS said it dawned on them the reason the agency refused to let
his family see the body before the negotiation was concluded and all
documents signed. “If you see the corpse, you would know that he was
tortured and killed in a brutal manner. He had two deep cuts in the back
of his head, apparently inflicted by a machete or other similar sharp
objects. There were cuts and bruises all over his body,” the source
said. As part of the agreement reached with the deceased family, the
SSS agreed to foot the bill for his funeral. Mr. Eyitayo’s body was
carried to his hometown in Oyo for burial in the most disrespectful
manner, the source said.
“If you see the way they carried his body home. They couldn’t even get a proper vehicle to deliver his body to his family. “They
got a rickety vehicle. On their way to Oyo State, the vehicle conveying
his body was so old that its tyres bust twice before it got to the
town. And they spent several hours on the road fixing the tyres. “His
body was not even put in a casket. He was taken home for burial in a
body bag made of jute sack. The type used for keeping rice.
Babs
Animashaun, the lawyer who represented the family, declined to discuss
details of the negotiation when reached for comments. He however said
the family has moved on after settlement. “That is strictly confidential between the parties. I cannot share the details of the settlement with the public,” he said. “The
family agreed to settle with the SSS out of court. They can never be
happy with what has happened but at least they were able to move on.
That is what is important,” he added.
The SSS could not be
reached for comments. The agency does not have a spokesperson, neither
does it have an email address or phone number through which it can be
contacted. Before the current administration, the SSS used to have a
spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, but the current leadership of the agency led
by Lawal Daura, has refused to appoint one or disclose how it should be
officially contacted for enquiries.
When PREMIUM TIMES visited
the palace of the Oba of Lagos to ask about his role in the saga,
officials requested a formal letter. About two weeks after the letter
was delivered, the monarch has not responded or agreed to a formal
interview
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