A 62-year-old woman, Mrs Florence Fasere, who happens to be the mother of Seyi Fasere, a final-year student of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, who was shot dead by the police in Ilupeju Ekiti has told her police harassment story. She tells OLUFEMI OLANIYI how she and her husband, Joseph, were physically assaulted and detained by the police after killing their son

What do you do?

I was a trader but I have not been able to work since the police killed my son, my first child. Seyi was shot dead by a policeman, popularly known as Akobi Esu (Devil’s firstborn).

Why was he killed?

They said he was an armed robber but my son was not an armed robber. They just wasted his life and the killers are walking freely as if they have not committed any offence.

Where and when did it happen?

It happened in March 2013. He was killed at a police station at Obalasan in Ilupeju Ekiti. It is very close to Oye Ekiti.

How did it happen?

My son, Seyi, was a final-year student at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti when the incident happened. He was taking his final examination and had one more examination to take. He had not fully paid his tuition; he still had N100,000 to pay and he said the school management was threatening that he would not be allowed to sit the last examination if he did not pay. He came back home to Ilupeju Ekiti and we were able to raise the money and give to him. I think he had an examination to take the following day.

He went to a barbershop to have a haircut and sent a neighbour to tell me that his younger brother should bring his bag to him at the bus stop – Esinkun. But I told his brother that he could not just leave without returning home to shower and wash off the hair and more importantly, pray before embarking on the journey. I never knew I would not see him alive again. He left around 5:30pm; that was the last time I saw him.

His brother took his bag to him at the bus stop and I was later told that he saw a woman he knew in the bus going to Ado Ekiti and she asked him to join but he said he would wait for a car. But the woman, who is a septuagenarian, Madam Victoria, told us later that he persuaded him to board the bus because she was also going to Ado Ekiti to visit her children. That was how he boarded the bus and they embarked on the journey. Just three of them were in the bus. When they got to Obalasan, they heard that armed robbers were attacking a bank ahead of them and the driver was said to have asked the old woman if she knew a shortcut so they would not run into the robbery scene. They said she gave the driver the direction of another route. The driver was new on that road so he was said to have asked to be directed. At that time, we started hearing gunshots in Ilupeju because it is not very far from us. I was worried and I ran to Esinkun where he boarded the bus but I was told that he had left. Later, the driver parked the bus and they hid somewhere so they could wait until the shooting would stop. The woman said she asked Seyi to go and bring their bags because the driver had dropped their bags and turned back.

Was he shot while carrying the bags or what?

I heard that the policemen combing everywhere to see if they could arrest some of the robbers saw him when he was taking the bags. They arrested him and took him to the station. The woman did not see Seyi again. She returned to Ilupeju because that is where she lives; the woman is resident here. She came to ask if Seyi had come back home because she said they had to abandon the journey because of the robbery incident. I told her that I had not seen him. We started searching everywhere for him but we did not hear that he was arrested and taken to the station that night.

How did you eventually know he was killed at the station?

We heard the following morning that somebody was killed and I called his dad who was in Ado-Ekiti to know if he had seen Seyi but he said no. I told him about what happened. The following morning, one of my younger brothers called me and told me that they had killed Seyi at the station. I left and his dad also came from Ado-Ekiti and together with Blessing, his younger brother, we left for the police station.