A tailor, Jumoke Saheed, has cried out over the refusal of the police to either charge or allow her see her son two years after he was arrested by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Lagos State Police command in 2015.
Mrs Saheed told the Punch that the Investigating Police Officer, one Sergeant Ogedengbe, had serially turned down her pleas to see her son, Shakoor Saheed, without reason.
She said her son was arrested on April 17, 2015, around 3am in his residence on Afolabi Alasia Street, Ijora Badia, Lagos State, for being involved in a street fight.
While seven others who were arrested in connection with the fight had been charged to an Ikeja Magistrate Court for robbery, Shakoor was not charged and has not been seen since then.
Mrs Saheed said whenever she goes to the SARS office to see her son, she is asked to pay N2,000 for his feeding but he is not brought out to her.
She said even her plea that his son be charged to court has not been heeded by the police.
She said, “Shakoor was arrested inside his apartment on April 17, 2015. His uncle, Mr. Rilwan Saheed, who he lived with in the same compound, told me on the telephone that he was arrested for street fighting.
“Shakoor’s brother and I went to SARS office in Ikeja. We met one policeman, Ade, aka Bullet. He said Ogedengbe was investigating the case and that guns and cutlasses were recovered from the scene of the fight. Bullet said somebody told them to waste Shakoor.
“I went there several times, they didn’t allow me to see him while relatives of other suspects arrested for the same offence were allowed to see them. Each time I went there, I paid N2,000 for his feeding. At a point, they stopped collecting money from me.
“On June 26, 2015, the six other persons were arraigned in court. I asked Ogedengbe why my son was not arraigned, but he did not give me any answer. At a point, he started avoiding me. He told me to go and meet his uncle if I wanted my son to be freed.”
She added that her entreaties to the uncle to meet with the SARS men fell on deaf ears.
The woman explained that she went to the Office of the Public Defender sometime in 2016 to report the case, but a lawyer assigned to attend to her was evasive.
SARS have come under criticism for their heavy-handed approach and there have been allegations of extra-judicial killings against its operatives.
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