No, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment action. ASP Usman Nuhu of the Nigeria Police Force came to the Benin Motor Park along the Warri–Sapele Expressway in Effurun, Delta State, with an intention to kill. Pure and simple. Usman led a team of policemen from the Effurun Area Command to the motor park following the detention of a man by members of a transport union while allegedly attempting to waybill a parcel containing a Beretta pistol with four rounds of ammunition. And after the suspect Mene Ogidi was handed over to Usman, he carried out the summary execution of the hapless 28-year-old man, who posed no danger in any way or form to the arresting party. They cut short the life of a young Nigerian in broad daylight for no reason whatsoever. Effurun, Delta State, witnessed a horrendous crime against humanity on Sunday, April 26, 2026. The victim was not killed; he was summarily executed, murdered in cold blood.
Visiting a suspect with summary execution is a horrendous crime against humanity. And it wasn’t done by a momentary mob baying for blood but by one of the people paid by the State to safeguard the lives of the people and ensure law and order. Indeed, this killing, of course, not the first of its kind, but this one in its cold-blooded execution and wanton disregard and disrespect for human life, diminishes our common humanity. The content of the video, recorded by a bystander, is distressing and traumatizing. The executioner chose to ignore the pleading of the young man and carried out the dastardly act with devilish audacity.
And the ASP left no one in doubt about his affiliation. He carried out the execution just beside a patrol van bearing the full insignia of the Nigeria Police Force. The audacity of his impunity is beyond belief, and no doubt made the Police vicariously liable for his unethical and condemnable action. But for the recording, the execution-style murder of citizen Mene Ogidi would have been treated as another death of a suspect in custody, of course, shrouded in mystery.
The Police High Command, through Anthony Placid, the Force Public Relations Officer, agreed that their man overreached himself and breached the law. According to Commissioner Placid, “Preliminary reports indicate that operatives attached to the Effurun Area Command responded to credible information from Benin Motor Park along the Warri–Sapele Expressway regarding a suspect apprehended by members of a transport union while attempting to waybill a parcel containing a Beretta pistol with four rounds of ammunition. While efforts were being made to take the suspect into lawful custody, the team leader, ASP Nuhu Usman, discharged his firearm in clear violation of extant regulations, resulting in the death of the suspect.”
Therefore, what happened in Effurun on Sunday, April 26, 2026, should not be swept under the carpet. Apart from ensuring that the man who pulled the trigger is made to face the FULL weight of the law, the other accomplices – the members of the deadly Team should not be spared. The general hunch is that the cold-blooded executioner was in the know of something relating to the case and wanted to permanently silence the guy. Or that such wanton execution of suspects is routine practice for him.
The Police High Command should carry out a thorough probe of the Team to determine their modus operandi in the past. Some members of the public are already coming forward with tales of woe in the many places that ASP Usman had worked in the past. This should be probed to determine levels of complicity and failure to act on previous infractions by Usman and his Team.
This is also an opportunity for IGP Tunji Disu to walk his talk about a new Police that has zero tolerance for impunity and the kind of dastardly act that was carried out in Delta State. There’s a need for the old breed officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force to get a new dose of reorientation on humane policing that thrives on the rule of law. However, the main education should be at the Police Academy and Police Colleges. New intakes MUST be taught about the Sanctity of human life and engagements with the public. That the guns they carry are to protect the people and not to kill.
And the Committee set up by the IGP to review existing policing models within and outside Nigeria; assess community security needs; address recruitment, training, standards, and resource allocation issues; and develop robust accountability and oversight mechanisms to ensure professionalism and broaden public trust must speed up its work to ensure that the pronouncement of Disu to the effect that, “The days of impunity are over. The badge and uniform are symbol of public trust. Anyone who treats it otherwise will face the consequences,” is not just mere rhetorics.
IGP Tunji Disu must not only direct, like he did after his inauguration, but he must ensure that “senior officers lead by example, enforce discipline decisively, and uphold the highest ethical and professional standards at all times within the rank and file of the police.”
Disu’s promise of strengthening and revitalizing internal accountability mechanisms, including the Complaints Response Unit and the X-Squad, to ensure that no officer acts above and outside the law MUST become the top priority now for the Police management team.
And the likes of Officer Usman Nuhu should be shown the way out of the force to prevent doing incalculable damage to the image of the Police and the Nigerian State through a repeat of the Sad episode of Effurun.
*Adebanjo , former Head Newsroom TELL Magazine , sent this piece via obanijesu@yahoo.com
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