A policeman in Nigeria has been shot dead inside a police area command in Ado Ekiti, the capital city of Ekiti State in the southwest region.
The policeman was reportedly shot dead at the weekend during a fracas that ensued when some youths in Ado Ekiti stormed the area command to protest the killing of a commercial motorcyclist by a driver.
The police were alleged to have seized the remains of the cyclist and the sum of N470,000 paid to the family of the deceased by the car owner.
The deceased’s family had allegedly demanded the money to enable them transport the corpse to their country home for burial.
Police officers at the command were said to have chased out the protesters from the station but in the melee, the policeman was shot in the leg.
The deceased bled to death from the gunshot wounds,
But the Police Public Rations Officer, Ekiti Command, ASP Sunday Abutu, said the police are still investigating who actually fired the shot that killed the policeman.
Abutu alleged that the investigation became expedient on the premise that the protesters came to the police station with dangerous weapons and that the gunshots came from different directions .
“It was true that the police allowed the driver and the deceased’s family to negotiate and the driver agreed to pay a sum of N440,000, which had been paid to the family of the deceased.
“But out of that money, it was agreed that a sum of N150,000 should be paid to the bike owner. It was this the protesters heard and stormed the police station in anger that our men were trying to cheat them. The owner of the motorcycle has not even been paid at all.
“As they were brandishing dangerous weapons and requesting that the detainee be released to them, the police fired teargas cannisters to scare them. But to the police’s surprise, they saw that gunshots were coming from different directions and one of our men was hit in the process and died .
“It was hasty and wrong that it was the police that fired the shot that killed one of them. We are still investigating”, he said.