Vigilantes torture colleague to death over phone

A member of the Digbolukolu Local Security Outfit identified simply as Ezekiel, aka Baba Malu, has been tortured to death by his colleagues on the premises of the Langbasa Health Centre in the Ajah area of Lagos State.

It was gathered that members of the security outfit established by the Eti-Osa East Local Council Development Area accused Ezekiel of stealing a phone during an event members of the outfit attended in the community on Monday, June 26, 2023.

In an effort to reprimand him, the leader of the security outfit, Olaide Taofik, reportedly ordered members of the outfit to tie Ezekiel and beat him up in the guardroom of the security outfit on the premises of the Langbasa Health Centre.

A source in the area said after beating Ezekiel, members of the security outfit allegedly abandoned and starved him for two days till he became unconscious and died on Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

The source said, “Members of the security outfit attended an event on Monday and Ezekiel saw a phone and kept it. Unknown to him, the battery of the phone was low and by the time he approached the leader to inform him, the phone was already dead.

“That was how he was accused of switching off the phone in an attempt to convert it to personal use. The leader of the group ordered Ezekiel’s colleagues to take him to a guardroom attached to their office in the council’s primary health centre at Lamgbasa. They tied him and started to torture him in the guardroom. He begged to be released but was not allowed to leave.

“After he was beaten, Ezekiel started to complain that he was weak but despite his complaints, he was left unattended to. It was later in the day that he died. After he died, the leader of the group did not tell anyone until Thursday when he started to tell people that Ezekiel died of a natural cause. It was also on that same Thursday that the police came to arrest them.”

The source added that the Chairman of the LCDA, John Ogundare, went to the police station to bail the suspects on Friday, adding that the police re-arrested them again on Monday.

The administrative head of the security outfit, who identified himself simply as Adedayo, told our correspondent that the suspects were rearrested by police officers from the State Criminal Investigation Department, in the Yaba area of the state.