The 2011 governorship candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria in Kwara State, Mr. Dele Belgore (SAN), has called for a thorough probe into the shooting of a National Diploma student of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Ahmed Dayo.
Dayo was on Monday hit on the leg when a corporal, who was among the escorts of a bullion van of a first generation bank, allegedly fired a shot.
In a statement by his media aide, Mr. Rafiu Ajakaye, on Wednesday, Belgore said the excesses of some bad eggs in the police must be checked.
He urged security agencies to always exercise restraint even in the face of provocation from the populace, asking the Kwara State Government not to sit on the fence but should act if it was discovered after due investigation that the affected policeman acted unlawfully.
Belgore said, "We are saddened by the latest round of disruption of public peace arising from the alleged shooting of a student by a policeman attached to a bullion van. We wish the concerned student a speedy recovery from his alleged gunshot injury.
"We urge caution on the side of the security agencies, especially the police and the Kwara State Polytechnic students who are genuinely irked by the alleged shooting of their colleague. In order to avoid a repeat of this ugly incident, we call on the state government and the police authorities to thoroughly investigate this matter.
"We recall that a similar incident of avoidable shooting had led to the killing, also in Ilorin, of one Muyideen Mustapha Opobiyi, who was involved in the fuel subsidy protest of January 2012. Maybe this latest shooting would have been averted had thorough investigation being done into that sad incident of 2012."
Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students on Wednesday also condemned Dayo's shooting and what it called the continuous harassment and killings of Nigerian students by policemen.
In a statement, the Coordinator, NANS Zone C, Adio Odunjo, said that Nigerian students had made sacrifices to ensure that democracy was enthroned in Nigeria.
The Punch