Police kills a man in Port Harcourt over an iPhone

The killing of a civilian, Jimoh Abiodun, by an officer attached to Elelenwo Police Division, Port Harcourt, has been reported by the Rivers State Police Command.

Police Commissioner CP Joseph Mukan condemned the police sergeant’s killing of Jimoh Abiodun.

The police serjeant, whose identity is yet to be made public, allegedly shot one Jimoh Abiodun, a Kwara state native, to death over an iPhone.

When narrating what happened, Ismaheel Jimoh, brother to the deceased, said police officers stopped him and his brother in a patrol van when they were on a motorcycle heading home on Friday night, December 18, 2020.

Ismaheel explained that, “the Police officers searched us and saw nothing except our ID cards and iPhone and another handset. One of the Police Officers insisted on taking us to the Police station at Elelewon which we obliged.”

Ismaheel claimed that one of the police officers allegedly asked them to bail themselves at the entrance to the station, but he told the officer they only had N1,500 left.

“While this Officer was insisting on payment, other Police officers told the officer who shot my brother dead to let us go since nothing incriminating was found on us but the officer refused.

“As the Officer who was drunk was beating my brother at the front of the Police station, I heard two gunshot and when I turned back my brother was lying on the floor.

“Myself and the other Police officers then took my brother to three different hospitals but they declined attending to him and on our way to the University of Port Harcourt Hospital the officers drove so rough that my weak brother fell out from the back of the patrol van which made him to sustain several degrees of injuries,” Ismaheel said.

The wife of the deceased, Azeezat Omolara Jimoh, who cried uncontrollably while talking to newsmen in Port Harcourt, expressed shock at the fact that her husband was killed for no cause.

She called on the government of the Rivers State, the police and well-meaning Nigerians to come to their assistance.

But in a statement by its spokesperson, SP Nnamdi Omoni, the Rivers State Police Command confirmed that the incident is being investigated and the results will be announced to the media.

“The Police Sergeant who carried out the dastardly act is in custody for debriefing and psychological evaluation. His Orderly Room Trial will commence in earnest, for possible arraignment.

“The Command is in touch with the family and has commiserated with them over the unfortunate incident and has assured them that the interest of justice will be served in the circumstance, while appealing for calm and allow the law to take its full course”, the statement reads.

It was concluded that the deceased, Abiodun Jimoh, is an INTELS staff member in Onne, Rivers State’s Eleme Local Government District, and is survived by his wife and three children aged six, four and one years.

In the mortuary, his ashes were buried.