2:45:00 pm
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 N15 million compensation to the victim's family,
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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
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