Nigerian Army contradicts IGP Egbetokun over claim no police or military officer shot protesters

The Nigeria Army has admitted one of its soldiers killed Ismail Mohammed, a 16-year-old boy, in Zaria during the #EndBadGovernance protest.

 

Onyema Nwachukwu, the Army Public Relations director, shared this in a statement on Wednesday after social media videos showed Mohammed’s body next to a parked military van.

 

 

The army stated that its troops “received a distress call that some hoodlums gathered in Samaru in large numbers, burning tires on the road and pelting stones on security personnel”.

 

Those troops went to the scene to enforce the curfew the Kaduna State Government had imposed on its citizens, the army said.

 

“On arrival at the scene, the hoodlums brazenly attempted attacking the troops prompting a soldier to fire a warning shot to scare the hoodlums away, which unfortunately led to the death of a 16-year-old boy Ismail Mohammed,” the army claimed.

 

“The soldier involved has since been arrested and undergoing interrogation as at the time of this report.”

 

But Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector-General of Police, claimed that the military didn’t shoot live bullets during the protests.

 

“The police and the military, and indeed no other security agency involved in the management of this protest, have deployed excessive use of force,” the IGP had said.

 

“Instead, what we had were attacks on security agents during the protest. From our record, there was no shooting incident by the police. The police or military did not use any live ammunition in the management of these protests.”

 

With additional reporting from FIJ