LAST week, Bayelsa-born centre defender of Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC), Izu Joseph was cold-bloodedly shot dead by soldier who had gone to raid a shrine in his Okarki Community in Bayelsa. He was said to be on holiday after the close of the football season. From eyewitness accounts, there was no doubt that the young, promising footballer was murdered.
A witness said when information filtered into the ‘shrine’ that soldiers were on the way to raid the shrine, some people jumped into the waters to escape.
For Joseph, he made the mistake that probably cost him his life. In righteous innocence, he felt he could explain his way out of the ‘trouble’. And he tried as the witness who was watching the entire scenario from the window said he was shouting, ‘I am innocent, I am a footballer’.
He was said to have brandished his identity card to prove that truly he was a footballer. But none of the raiders was interested in such ‘worthless’ piece of paper. He was shot dead.
No doubt about it, Izu Joseph was in the wrong place at the wrong time. From all accounts, the place he was killed was said to be a notorious hide out that had been raided in the past, in spite of that, it was not an excuse to spill the young man’s blood. What makes his death painful was the fact that he was not armed.
Why this incident became a focus of today’s piece is due to the fact that, apart from the waste of a young life, it is important the federal government does not allow another extra-judicial killing like this to be swept under the carpet, as it is usual in most cases of such killings.
I recall that a similar thing occurred around this same time last year. The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) had raided a waterside in Ketu, Lagos state, shooting sporadically into the air. People in the area started running in a bid to escape.
In the process, a 32-year old graduate of Ondo State University, Dapo Olasore fell inside the water. A boat operator that saw that this father of a five-year old was going to drown attempted to rescue him. The NDLEA operator threatened to shoot him (operator) for trying to intervene.
All the NDLEA operatives watched until Olasore drowned. It was the most inhuman act that I have ever heard of. Today, we have not heard that the government investigated the matter. Indeed, If circumstances of Olasore’s death was investigated and appropriate sanction meted out, a strong signal would have been sent to the overzealous security operatives whose mentality has always been ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Them here being the civilian population.
Similarly, a few years ago, a newly married young man, Ugo Uzoah was similarly shot dead by a policeman in Gbagada, Lagos. His marriage was just five days old at the time of his death. He had escorted a friend who had come to greet him to the bus stop when the incident happened. One can go on and on about instances of extra-judicial deaths. And the trend has not abated.
Back to Izu Joseph’s case, the army authority said it has set up a committee to investigate. Though not opposed to the army authority investigating what happened with a view to cleansing its house, but you cannot be a judge in your own case.
An independent body should also be constituted to probe the death, recommend appropriate punishment as deterrent while also considering paying compensation to the family for a wrongful death.
The independent probe panel should go a step further by making recommendations that would help arrest the trend. It’s unfortunate that the military and other law enforcement agencies see civilians as ‘enemies’ that must be dealt with, this should not be so.
There’s a need to change this mindset. Izu Joseph could have been arrested considering that he was unarmed. But this was not so.
The traditional ruler of the community did not do much to assuage the hurt of the footballer’s family. Speaking on the incident, he said he had tried to stop the congregation of people at the shrine in the past and the people affected should take what ever happened to them. His body language was that they should accept their fate because whoever died in that process deserved it.
That is totally wrong. What is paramount is protection of life. Nobody has a right to take the life of a fellow Nigerian especially since the guilt of such a person has not been established.
This is democracy, there should be strict adherence to the rule of law. Law enforcement agencies should not see civilians as enemies that must be subdued.