The mother of the slain Assistant Captain of Remo Stars Football Club, Tiamiyu Kazeem, has said operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad had attempted to arrest her son two weeks before his death on Saturday.
The mother stated this on Tuesday morning when the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, paid a condolence visit to the family of the deceased.
She said her late son, born on August 7, 1994, was not an internet fraudster (aka ‘Yahoo boy’) but a professional footballer.
She said, “Two weeks before his death, my son complained that operatives of SARS usually surround his car. In fact, he called his father on many of these occasions.
“There was a certain day that his elder brother’s wife put to bed and he was at the hospital. Just as he went in, I was called that SARS operatives had surrounded his car. I rose and went there and on getting there, I met them.
“I called one of their bosses immediately because, during Gbenga Daniel’s tenure, I served all policemen in the state souvenirs whenever they had meetings. So, he told them to leave my son alone and they did. They told me they were sorry and I told them they should be sorry for themselves.
“He usually wore his club’s jersey. He cherished the jersey more than any other cloth. I washed his jerseys almost every day, and his boots too. He had up to 15 pairs of boots. Whenever he wears a white jersey, he would match it with a white pair of socks. His jersey and socks always match. He was in one of his jerseys that Saturday when the incident happened.
“He woke up on that Saturday morning and said he wanted to get to his manager’s place. After he left, I called him a few minutes past 11 am to tell that him his food was ready.
“The person with him said he stepped down from his vehicle to buy something and before he came back, there were SARS operatives seated in his car.
“They took his phone and interrogated him. He told them he was a footballer. And he was whisked to Abeokuta in their vehicle during which the incident happened.”
Meanwhile, the Ogun State Police Command on Monday recommended that the SARS operative allegedly involved in the killing of Kazeem be dismissed.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, also on Monday asked the Deputy Inspector-General in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Anthony Ogbizi, to investigate the matter.
