There was tension in the Ajah area of Lagos State as some vigilantes tortured one of their members to death for allegedly stealing a phone.
NIGERIACRIME learnt that the deceased, a member of the Digbolukolu Local Security Outfit identified simply as Ezekiel, aka Baba Malu, was killed on the premises of the Langbasa Health Centre in the area.
The security outfit was established by the Eti-Osa East Local Council Development Area.
The other members accused the deceased of stealing the phone during an event they attended in the community on Monday, June 26, 2023.
The leader of the security outfit, Olaide Taofik, was said to have ordered members of the outfit to tie Ezekiel and beat him up in the guardroom of the security outfit as a way of reprimanding him.
According to a source in the area, the vigilante members abandoned and starved Ezekiel for two days till he became unconscious and died on Wednesday, June 28, 2023.
The source said, “Members of the security outfit attended an event on Monday and Ezekiel saw a phone and kept it. Unknown to him, the battery of the phone was low and by the time he approached the leader to inform him, the phone was already dead.
“That was how he was accused of switching off the phone in an attempt to convert it to personal use. The leader of the group ordered Ezekiel’s colleagues to take him to a guardroom attached to their office in the council’s primary health centre at Lamgbasa. They tied him and started to torture him in the guardroom. He begged to be released but was not allowed to leave.
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“After he was beaten, Ezekiel started to complain that he was weak but despite his complaints, he was left unattended to. It was later in the day that he died. After he died, the leader of the group did not tell anyone until Thursday when he started to tell people that Ezekiel died of a natural cause. It was also on that same Thursday that the police came to arrest them.”
Furthermore, the suspects were bailed on Friday by the Chairman of the LCDA, John Ogundare but the police, according to the source, rearrested them on Monday.
Confirming their arrest, the administrative head of the security outfit, who identified himself simply as Adedayo, disclosed that they were picked up by police officers from the State Criminal Investigation Department, in the Yaba area of the state.
“All that you said about what they did is true. Though I was not around when the incident happened, it was when I returned from the trip that I got to know about it,” Adedayo said.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the incident.
He said, “One person died and the six suspects have been arrested and taken to the State Criminal Investigation Department”