My son’s corpse still in mortuary two years after police killed him – Father

My name is Olamilekan Sanyaolu, the father of Mubarak Sanyaolu, who was killed by the police on November 4, 2021. On that day, the boy dressed up and went out to the place where he was learning a vocation. At that time, he was observing a midterm break in school and he was in Senior Secondary School 1. The midterm holiday lasted a week and before then, he had spent two years learning the vocation and he had just a year (left) to gain freedom from apprenticeship before the incident occurred. I was at home that morning and it wasn’t more than one hour after he left that we heard of a riot outside. I got to know that there was a riot around the Command Secondary School in front of the Army barracks. So, when I heard that the police had killed someone in Command, I went out to see for myself.

I saw the corpse of a man, whose nickname was Eleyele. It was because of him that the trouble ensued with the police. Being a commercial tricycle rider, it was said that a policeman requested N100 from him but he said he wasn’t working at that moment, and that he only wanted to drop the tricycle for the person who wanted to use it. So, he (Eleyele) refused to give the policeman the money and the policeman threatened to waste him if he did not give him the money. They reportedly went back and forth with the argument, after which the policeman allegedly opened his bag, brought out a knife, and stabbed the tricycle operator in the chest. That was how the man fell. People rushed him to a nearby hospital only to be told that he was dead.

The boys around took the corpse to the Meiran Police Station at the bus stop. That was the beginning of trouble as there were many policemen at the Command area that day. I went to see Mubarak because the place where the man was killed is not far from the place where my son was learning his vocation. When I got there, the people at the scene where the incident happened gathered inside a shopping complex where they sought safety, and by the time the heat of the riot had gone down and the complex was opened, we discovered that the policemen who gathered there were more than 15. They were not only armed with guns but also bottles, machetes and stones.

So, as they shot with their guns, they also threw bottles and stones at people. When the chaos subsided a bit, more people had the opportunity to leave the complex for their safety, and at the time, Mubarak was there. It was when he ran out that the policemen shot. Mubarak and another person were hit; the second person was just lucky that he didn’t die because he was hit on his hand, but a stray bullet hit Mubarak and he fell on the walkway.

I saw that people gathered around there and I couldn’t have thought that it would be my son. When I got there, I saw that it was my son, who was shot. I saw his clothes that were stained (with blood) at the back and people put their hands on their heads. When we tried to pull him up, his intestines were out and he could not talk. His eyes were open and he was looking at me but couldn’t say a word. I quickly rushed him to the same hospital where the other man was taken, but the hospital couldn’t save the boy’s life. They locked their gates. It was at the gate of the hospital that he died.

The people in the area told us to take his corpse to the police station; so, we took it there and when we were almost there, some policemen confronted us and told us to drop the corpse on the road, and that if we didn’t do that, they would kill another person and nothing would happen. The boys who came along insisted that they wouldn’t do that. So, the policemen fired teargas canisters and the commercial motorcyclist that took me there made a U-turn and we came back to Command. The soldiers at the Command barracks later went to the station to see the divisional police officer, spoke with him, and told me to follow them to the station.