A 17-year-old young man who had recently returned from the US has been hospitalized in Ibadan, Oyo State, after allegedly being assaulted by police officers in the Jogor Centre area.
The victim, whose identity remains undisclosed, had come to Nigeria to visit his aged grandmother.
Eyewitnesses reported that the incident happened when the teenager, along with another person, was riding a bike near Jogor Centre.
They were stopped by a group of police officers numbering up to five.
According to Sola Ajayi, a resident, one of the officers began video recording the encounter, prompting the boy’s companion to do the same in case of any untoward developments.
The situation escalated as the officers, seemingly agitated by the video recording, called for reinforcement from the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) at Iyaganku Police Station.
Additional personnel, armed with rifles, arrived at the scene, and the situation took a violent turn.
“One of the police men was doing a video recording when the boy’s partner also began to do a video recording in case anything happened. So, before we knew it, the officers had called the Divisional Police Officer at Iyaganku Police Station.
They brought more police men. The DPO came in a Lexus 470 jeep. There were many with rifles. One of them tried to cock his gun and his magazine even fell off. They took them to the station in their vehicle where they were beaten,” Ajayi said.
The victim and his brother, who were both allegedly assaulted by the police, have been admitted to a hospital and are currently receiving medical treatment.
Witnesses claimed that the police referred to the young man as a “fraudster” due to his different appearance, suggesting discrimination based on his foreign background.
“They called him a fraudster because his look was different from ours. They were going to ShopRite that day. It happened on our street. It was at the back of the Jogor Centre. The route they followed was a shortcut.
Please, help us in this area. Is it an offence for a grandson to come from the US to greet his grandmother? They punched the other brother. The boy had never been beaten before. Police men never beat them where they came from,” the source said.