A yet-to-be-identfied police officer attached to the Lagos State Police Command killed Toheeb, known by his friends as Girisi, and shot another man’s cheek at a government-created parking space in the Mile 2 area of Lagos State in the early hours of Tuesday.

The police officers designated as a task force team were said to be driving in their vehicle when they saw Toheeb’s truck parked by the roadside.

The driver’s friends explained that Toheeb was billed to transport a yellow-coloured shipping container to a location outside of Lagos State. He had just loaded the container onto his truck and parked it by the roadside to perform some checks on its battery and the engine to ensure it was fine.

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According to a man, who chose not to give his name, the driver was also waiting to receive the food he ordered from a fast food vendor at the park when the officers came around.

“Toheeb is my guy. He was heavily built. If you saw him for once, you would never think he would die in the next forty years. In fact, he did not die, but a policeman killed him. His only offence was that he parked his vehicle by the roadside just to quickly check his truck’s battery to confirm it was fine and collect his food from an Indomie seller,” said the man.

According to him, police officers were in bed with thugs and they usually combined forces to harass truckers in the area in order to exploit them.

“Police are our biggest headache here. They use thugs to do dirty jobs here. They could come around and start harassing us for no just reason. They have killed our friend now. His assistant, who was shot in the cheek, is currently in the hospital.”

FIJ also spoke with Afeez who was one of the protesting truck drivers on Tuesday morning. He reiterated the earlier account, adding that the police officers wanted to drive Toheeb’s truck to their station and he was not yielding to their action.

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“The policemen questioned him on why his vehicle was there and he explained that he only parked it there to do some little things and start his journey. They refused to accept his response. Instead, they asked him for money and he could not afford that. They then wanted to drive the vehicle away and he refused to allow them,” Afeez explained to FIJ.

“Suddenly, they just shot him. He died on the spot, while a bullet hit his assistant on the cheek. It was about 3 pm. Who will fight for him? His death is painful to us. This is not the first time they would cause sorrow here.”

FIJ gathered that the victim’s friends had buried him after their protest subsided in the morning.

A driver told FIJ that the police officers were from Alausa Police Station.

Benjamin Hundeyin, Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, had not responded to our text message at press time. His phone number was also not connecting at the time of this publication.

That claim cannot be confirmed yet. Information is still sketchy.

However, I can confirm that police patrol teams have arrived the scene, obstacles are being cleared and free flow of traffic picking up again.

Further updates to follow… https://t.co/8JSs9Tl9ER

— SP Benjamin Hundeyin (@BenHundeyin) September 5, 2023

However, Hundeyin had earlier posted on X that the claim that a police officer was responsible for the murder could not “be confirmed yet”. He reported that the information he had was “still sketchy”.

“Investigation into the killing of a driver has commenced,” Hundeyin later posted. This was after Lagos State Commissioner of Police Idowu Owohunwa visited the crime scene.