Keziah Sunday was a Kaduna-based 38-year-old wife and mother until Tuesday when a policeman fatally shot her.

She had gone to a market sometime around noon, but when she was returning to her family in the Gonin Gora area of the state, a stray bullet hit her at about 1:30 pm.

The police took her body to a morgue, but while her family demands justice, the men from the Gonin Gora division insist they are innocent and the shot was fired in error.

Speaking with FIJ, Yamai Patrick, Sunday’s cousin, said he and his cousins had been trying to get justice for the victim but the police was protecting the shooter.

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“The police are saying they were chasing a criminal that was running to escape, and that was why they shot,” Patrick told FIJ. “The DPO of the station and the one in charge of the area went with us to St Gerald Hospital, and they were the ones that handled the depositing of the body at the morgue.”

Patrick said when he and his cousin visited the station, the police claimed the shooter had run away and they did not know him.

“They’re saying the trigger-happy police officer has run away and they don’t know him,” Patrick told FIJ. “They’re trying to hide the guy.”

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FIJ also spoke with Titus Daniel, Patrick’s cousin who had been in contact with the police. Daniel told us he visited the police division at Kaduna-Abuja tollgate, where he wrote a statement.

“They took my statement and also heard from the Gorin Gora police, and they are investigating,” he told FIJ.

FIJ also called Mohammed Jalige, Kaduna State Police Public Relations Officer, but he did not take our calls on Thursday morning. He also had not responded to our text message as of press time.

Ojukwu is a reporter with FIJ in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.