www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37382:in-danger-for-the-sake-of-faith&catid=3:metro&Itemid=558

Policeman brutalizes a 17-year-old for
falling in love with another teenager,
alleges he stole her phone

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Gbadebo
Oloruntimilehin, who lives at No. 9, JMJ
Quarters, Ajegunle, Lagos has been known
to be an easy-going fellow, who loves
football very much.

Well-spoken about by his peers and elders,
he also makes friends easily, boys and girls,
and likes to try out new things, electronic
gadgets particularly.

But his love for football and his dreams of
playing overseas might have been
truncated as a consequence of the beating
he allegedly got from a Corporal, Wale
Omoseye of Tolu Police Station, Ajegunle,
Lagos State. Trouble started brewing for
Gbadebo when, sometime last year, he met
a girl called Faith Akintoye and they became
friends.

Initially, the friendship blossomed with the
two young people always in each other ’s
company.The boy even bought her a
handset, a Nokia 6288 at N8,000.00.

Then, suddenly, Faith’s mother did not want
to see Gbadebo anywhere near her
daughter and warned him to steer clear.

She is alleged to have threatened that if he
persisted, she would leave him with a mark
he would live with all his life.

According to Gbadebo: “Due to the warning
and the threat from Faith’s mother, I told
her we had to end our friendship.

“Although we still met once in a while,
usually at public functions, our relationship
was over.

“ It was obvious, however, that I still liked
her and she felt the same way about me.
But, there was nothing I could do.

“Continuing the relationship would have
been silly of me, particularly when Faith’s
mother attempted to bathe me with acid.

“I was lucky to have run away, but not
before some of the acid she threw at me
had splashed on and burnt my hand.

“Two weeks after I was discharged from
the hospital, I asked Faith to return the
phone I gave her but she refused. So I
planned to forcefully collect the phone from
her. ”

The boy who thought that he had cut all
links to Faith with the retrieval of his phone
had underestimated the depth of bitterness
nursed against him by her mother.

Narrating his story to The Guardian on
Tuesday, Gbadebo, who was obviously in
severe pains, said: “I succeeded in collecting
the phone from Faith.

“She told her mother, who  reported me to
her friend, a police corporal, Wale Omoseye
who, last Saturday, arrested me where I
worked in Ajegunle.

“Without telling me anything, he began to
beat me and I demanded to know what I
did. ”

Gbadebo said the Police Corporal brutalized
him, flogged him, threw him against a wall
twice then “warned me to stay away from
Faith.

Continuing, he said: “ I have been having
sever pains on my back.

“ According to the doctor at Merit Medical
Care, Tolu, my spinal cord seems to be
affected and that is why I can ’t walk
properly.”


He added that he only walked with the aids
of a  stick.

“The phone that the policeman said I stole
was given to Faith by me, when she said
she needed a phone. I still have the receipt
to buttress my claim. Since then, I can ’t walk,
and the doctor has warned me that if care is
not taken, I can be paralyzed. ”

According to Doyin, Gbadebo’s brother:
“Faith’s mother went to the police to report
that Debo stole her daughter’s phone.

“Instead of lodging a report properly, she
took the matter to a friend of theirs,
Corporal Omoseye, who took the matter in
his own hands and brutalized my brother to
the point that his life is in danger. ”

Another of Gbadebo’s brother, Ayomikun,
added, “I told my brother to follow him and
not to resist arrest.

“ He obeyed me and followed Corporal
Omoseye but when I got to the station, I
was surprised to see Gbadebo soaked in
blood and in pains.
“When I demanded to know what he did,
the policeman said he was a thief.

“I believe it was the policeman’s
relationship with the woman that
influenced him to beat my brother so badly
without investigating. ”

Efforts by The Guardian to talk to the girl or
her mother failed.Her shop has remained
locked for the past four days.

But in a telephone interview, the Divisional
Police Officer said the matter was under
investigation. He also said that if the boy
was beaten by Corporal Omoseye, it might
be because he was resisting arrest, adding
however: “it cannot be serious.”

The danger Gbadebo is facing is similar to
other incidents in Lagos such as the one of
Thursday, April 15, 2010, in which a police
officer in Shell Estate, Lekki, over-reacted
and    shot a man, leaving him with injuries,
for laughing.

The mindless shooting of 27-year-old
Udeme Akwa-Jackobson, a construction
worker, has left him bedridden since then.

In April 2010, Charles Okoroafor was
reportedly shot in the head by the police in
Ajegunle, following a raid on a viewing
centre during a football match.

The next day, irate residents gathered at the
Ajeromi Police Station to protest the killing;
four more people were killed including
Tunde Olute, allegedly shot in the head
when the police opened fire on the
protesters.


Three days after that incident, another
policeman on duty at a bank on the Marina,
shot dead a bureau-de-change operator
whom he alleged attempted to defraud an
old woman.

On December 13 last year, policemen on
patrol from Pako Police Post in Amukoko, a
suburb of Lagos, allegedly shot and killed a
21-year-old youth, identified as Ismaila
Sanni.

On Monday in Abuja, a policeman shot a
pregnant woman dead and injured a taxi
driver, which led to a violent protest during
which a bank was set ablaze.

So who is Hafiz Ringim

But, there was nothing I could do. “Continuing the relationship would have been silly of me, particularly when Faith’s mother attempted to bathe me with acid. “I was lucky to have run away, but not before some of the acid she threw at me had splashed on and burnt my hand.

WHATTT?

Errmm, errmm the police is your friend. So i heard.
SMH in disbelief.