A 14-year-old boy identified as ThankGod (surname withheld) was for two days locked up and tortured on the alleged order of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport, Abuja police station, Bayero Umar Sani, The Bureau Newspaper has gathered.
He was also denied food brought by his family members for the two days he was in detention and kept in the same place with hardened criminals.
The Bureau Newspaper learnt that ThankGod, a senior secondary school one student on Monday had an issue with a female classmate who vowed to deal with him for using abusive words on her.
“On the 5 November, 2024, after ThankGod came back from school, a man came and held him on the trousers. The man was not on uniform, so we asked him why and what happened, so he told us he is a police officer and showed us his ID card,” a relative of the boy told The Bureau Newspaper .
“He told us he was sent to come and arrest ThankGod by the DPO, the DPO’s name is Bayero Umar Sani of Airport station. He explained that ThankGod and a girl in his school had an issue. They threatened each other and she informed the DPO to arrest ThankGod.
“We immediately went to the girl’s house to look for her, we met her mother and she said she wasn’t aware. She told us the girl had gone to Islamia. Later, we met the girl, heard her side of the story, and asked her to contact the DPO. She called the DPO to come and see her. To our surprise, the DPO rushed down from a beer parlour, refused to listen and threatened to charge ThankGod to court. The relationship between them remains unknown to us.
“ThankGod was arrested on Monday and was in same detention with thieves and criminals. He spent two nights in the cell. He was tortured by policemen and his cell mates. Also, the sister took food to the station for him but she was told that she could not give him food because it was already past 10pm and that anything after 6pm, food is not allowed.”
A source in the neighborhood who spoke to The Bureau Newspaper said, “She was at fault, she bragged initially she was going to show the boy that she has a boyfriend who is a senior police officer, we all thought she was joking.
“It was after the family reached to the Police Public Complaint Commission, which intervened that the boy was released.
“It was glaring the DPO, Bayero Umar Sani has a personal interest in the case, possibly due to an affair with the girl as she claimed, because this girl never filed a statement or visited the station, she only informed the DPO who then ordered his men to arrest the boy.”
When contacted, Sani alleged that his men were assaulted during the arrest.
The Bureau Newspaper reached out to the FCT Commissioner of Police(CP), Olatunji Disu who said he was in a meeting.
“I am at a meeting, kindly send a text, please,” he said.