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A scavenger, identified as Haruna Mohammed at Ganaja area of Lokoja, Kogi State has been shot dead by a policeman over an alleged refusal to pay N200 bribe demanded by the officer.
Reports had it the officer, attached to the “C” Division in Lokoja killed the scavenger in the late hours of Saturday while other scavengers numbering over 40 blocked the Ganaja-Lokoja Road and set bonfire to register their anger.
It was gathered that the deceased was shot twice after an argument ensued between him and the police officer over the former’s refusal to part with the usual weekly stipends they give to the police for operating in the state capital.
One of the colleagues of the deceased told journalists that the police came to them at the said site, demanding to know the identity of the owner of a caravan (pointing to the caravan at the area), saying that when “we told them that the person who brought it was not around, the policeman asks him (the deceased) to give them some money.”
He explained that when the deceased refused, the policeman hit him and dragged him on the floor before one of them shot him in the head.
It took the intervention of men of the SARS to disperse the protesting youths who converged in the area.