The Narayi police station in the Metropolitan city of Kaduna, northern Nigeria was on Thursday set ablaze by angry Youths, following the death of a 21-year-old boy, Sylvester Friday.
He was alleged to have been used for ritual by a white garment pastor popularly known as Papa.
The house of the pastor was also burnt down as well as a church member’s car.
The station was set ablaze at about 4am by over 200 angry youths in search of the pastor, who reportedly ran to the police for safety immediately the late boy drowned in the river close to a bridge linking Narayi and Ungwan Maigero.
The boy was said to have been hired by the pastor in the Early morning of Wednesday 21st March, 2018 to construct a concrete space in the river to have stagnated water for his church use, but later drowned shortly after he completed the job.
It was gathered that the Police took the pastor into protective custody, after he had reported that a youth doing some construction work for the church had died in the process.
One of the deceased’s Aunt, who gave her name as Sarah, told AFRICA PRIME NEWS that “when papa came to our house he asked the boy to follow him to assist him, I did not know it was not a domestic job Papa wanted the boy to do for him, if I knew I wouldn’t have allowed him to go. Papa had worked with some other boys in the area for more than 2 to 4 times on the same project since December 2017, the work has been going on, whenever they build the concrete, he will scatter it, giving one complaint that it was not built to his taste.
“On my way coming back from work later in the day, I saw papa on the road, he did not tell me that my sister’s son was drowned in the river. Later a boy ran to our house calling me to come that my sister’s son has just been brought out of the river after the pastor got to the Police station without calling for help, at the moment the incidence happened, until one came back from the station that was when people knew.
“I ran out to the scene, just to see my sister’s son lying lifeless on the floor, blood coming out from his nostril, with his stomach flat as there was no water in his belly, and people around including some pastors try their best to revive the boy but he was already dead, Papa had completed his mission” she narrated.
According to her, “Sylvester is the first born of four children of the parents, who do menial job to support their mother, after their father was hit with stroke, while waiting for his admission into the school of NAVY, but his life was cut short by a man they call papa.”
She stressed that, they will not have peace in their family until the papa have been made to pay for the alleged offence he committed and called on the relevant authorities not to relent until justice is done.
Also speaking, the Chief of Narayi District and the Youths leader of the community, Ishaya Kube and Yahaya Barde respectively, described the incident as unfortunate, especially the burning of the police station.
According to them, the youths shouldn’t have taken the law into their hands, as the police were there for the safety of everybody.
“We made several efforts as community leaders to stop what had happened, especially at the station by calling Operation Yaki, who succeeded in dispersing the rampant youths last night, but just come out this morning and found the police station burnt by the same youths”, the leaders said.
While attributing the youths action to drugs, the leaders called on government to check drug-abuse among Youths in the country, for the security of the state and the country at large.
The youths besides burning the Police Station, were reported to have made away with seven motorcycles belonging to policemen, as well as vandalising a Honda Accord car belonging to an officer.
Efforts to speak with the Divisional Police Officer proved abortive as he declined comment.
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/01/22/opinion/nigerian-youths-social-media-influencers-and-the-defense-of-impunity/
