The family of Seyi Oduyiga has demanded justice for the death of the 39-year-old father of three allegedly tortured to death by the police.

Consequently, they have urged the Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun to investigate the case, claiming their son died under mysterious circumstances.

The family accused the police of brutality, torture, wrongful arrest, and other human rights violations.

The family said demanding justice for their son is not merely a legal battle but a moral imperative reverberating in the chambers of conscience.

Controversy has continued to trail the death of Oduyiga who allegedly died while in the custody of the Ogun State Police Command.

The bereaved family of the deceased accused the police of torturing their son to death but the police, on the other hand, claimed he died of exhaustion.

Oduyiga’s family insisted that their son died under mysterious circumstances and has vowed to get justice.

The deceased, a hair stylist, was said to have returned from South Africa where he had gone in search of greener pasture, only for his life to be cut short in his home country.

family accused the police of brutality, torture, wrongful arrest, and other violations of human rights.

Oduyiga died last Friday while in the custody of the police at the command’s headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

According to the family, he was arrested and labelled a cultist, but he was not given a chance to defend himself from the allegation.

While narrating how his brother was allegedly killed, the deceased’s sister, Mary Oduyiga, told our correspondent that her brother was arrested along with one other where he had gone to charge his phone.

The deceased’s sister said his brother was arrested and detained because he had some tattoos on him which made the police label him a cultist terrorising the state.

“Oduyiga was then taken to the Ogun State Police Command headquarters in Eleweran three days after his arrest; his death was announced to his family after several attempts to see him were rebuffed earlier by the officers who arrested him,” the sister said.

She said, “On Saturday, November 18, around 5 p.m., he (Seyi) went out to charge his phone around his house on the same street. There was no electricity; the neighbor put on a generator, and he went there to charge his phone. His house is at Atoyo in Sagamu. He sat under the tree in front of the house where he was charging his phone and took off his clothes due to the heat.

“It was in the process that he saw a team of policemen on patrol and he attempted to run, but fell and that was how he was arrested by the police. He was immediately taken to Awolowo Police Station along with one other person. It was at the station that police accused him of being a member of a cult, but he denied it.

“They took his picture and sent it to some suspected cultists who denied knowing him. The police said he would not be released because he had tattoos on his body, whereas the tattoos were Psalm 23.

“He wrote the verse of the Bible on his body, drew the two hands of Jesus supplicating on his chest with the inscription ‘only God can judge me.’ He also wrote on his neck “The day I will never forget,” dated April 7, 2014.

“The IPO threatened that he must be taken to police headquarters at Eleweran in Abeokuta and was eventually taken there on Tuesday.

“I was living in Ibadan; I had to come to Abeokuta on Thursday evening over the matter. I went to Eleweran on Friday and took along food; bread, malt, and bottled water. When I got there, I did not meet the IPO; I was asked to wait for him.

“I got to Eleweran around 10:00 a.m. and could not see the IPO until 1:00 p.m. When I first met him and told him I wanted to see my elder brother, Seyi, he said I should go out and wait until he was finished with what he was doing in his office.

“When I brought the food out to the officers and said I wanted to give it to my brother in the cell, I was charged N2,000, but I paid N1,000 instead to a policewoman. I was then asked to taste the food and water and I was asked to follow one of them to the cells to see my detained brother. While at the cell, the policewoman who led me started shouting his name but no response.

“As the policewoman was shouting his name, the IPO came around, blinked his eyelids to the woman, and then asked us to leave. We pleaded to give the food to Seyi. The IPO frowned at us and left angrily. We waited for a while to be asked again to hand over the food to Seyi.

“After some time, I became curious and approached a policeman who helped us to inquire about what happened. He told us that they were making arrangements to set some inmates free; maybe our brother was among them.

“After some hours, I lost my patience, went back to the policewoman, and pleaded to be allowed to see him and give him the food. She agreed and took us to the cells again.

“Some inmates said he had been taken out since morning; we were later called upstairs to meet the Deputy Commissioner of Police. We did not know he wanted to break the bad news to us; he then said, “Your boy was misbehaving in the cell overnight; he was biting the inmates, talking to himself; he was behaving like he has run mad. They took him to the hospital and on getting to the hospital, he gave up. He just stopped breathing.

“I asked him how a human could just stop breathing just like that; he said he could die while walking on the street, playing on the field, and falling and what would they do? I asked him why he was talking like that. He said he had been taken to the mortuary, and we were led to the mortuary; it was a very traumatic and pathetic situation for us,” she said.

Mary alleged that one police officer, simply identified as Officer Peter called the family that the IPO was demanding N200,000.

She said the family was still struggling to raise the money when the police broke the news of Seyi’s death to them.

Meanwhile, the Ogun State Police Command has, however, denied the allegations of torturing Seyi to death.

The Police Public Relations (PPRO), of the command, Omolola Odutola, insisted that the deceased did not die in police custody.

Odutola said the deceased and one other suspect arrested had earlier made “confessional statements to being members of the outlawed Buccaneer and Eiye Confraternity secret cults. Seyi confessed he was initiated in 2015.”

She said Seyi had been on the wanted list of the command over his alleged involvement in cult-related activities in Sagamu. (Saturday Independent)

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