Another Nigeria killed in South Africa by police

The Nigeria Union in South Africa has confirmed the killing of a member, Kingsley Ikeri, at Vryheid Town in Kwazulu Natal Province on Aug. 30, 2017.

Confirming the killing, NAN reported that late Ikeri, 27, was a businessman and native of Mbaitolu in Imo State.
Earlier in December 2016, Metropolitan Police in Cape Town suffocated Victor Nnadi, a Nigerian from Imo State to death.

The chairman of the union in the province, Bartholomew Eziagulu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Durban on Friday that Ikeri was allegedly tortured to death by the police.

He said the union’s investigations revealed that the police arrested the deceased and his friend on suspicion that they were carrying hard drugs.

While interrogating him, Eziagulu alleged that the police used plastic to cover his face to extort information from him.

“In the process, they suffocated the deceased. When the police took him to the hospital, he was confirmed dead,” he said.

Mr Adetola Olubajo, the secretary general of the union, said the national secretariat had been informed about the death of the Nigerian.

He said the body had informed appropriate Nigerian authorities and the police in South Africa.

Meanwhile, a senior diplomat from the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg had visited Vryheid on a fact-finding mission, accompanied by some members of the union and other Nigerians.

Note that a total of 116 Nigerians have been killed in various attacks of Nigerians resident in South Africa in the last two years, according to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa.

Of this number, 10 of the killings were carried out by the South African Police.

The presidential aide disclosed this sometime in February when she met with the South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Louis Mnguni in Abuja.