The police shot a twelve-year-old, Sani Danlami, as people scrambled over palliatives in Rijau, the headquarters of the Rijau Local Government Area of Niger State.
The police shot the victim on Sunday, during the distribution of palliative, when a skirmish engulfed one of the distribution units in the area.
It was gathered that the police shot sporadically into the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd; and in the process, a stray bullet hit Danlami, an internally displaced person, on his right hand while heading to the distribution side from his IDP camp.
Fielding questions from journalists, the Chairman of the Palliatives Distribution Committee in Charge of Rijau Local Government, Dr. Tukur Bello, stated that the police, in an effort to restore order, decided to shoot the victim, who was rushed to a nearby clinic for emergency medical attention before he was later referred to the IBB Specialist Hospital in Minna for further medical care.
Dr. Tukur, who is also the Commissioner for Secondary and Tertiary Health in Niger State, disclosed that the skirmish was the result of some miscreants who came into the distribution units and carted away some of the palliatives from the units, which resulted in shooting by the police.
According to Dr. Tukur Bello, in an effort by the police to control the mammoth crowd, they shot in the air, but unfortunately, the stray bullet hit the little boy, who is from an IDP camp, and the bullet hit him on his right hand.
" We rushed him to one of the clinics for emergency medical attention. On receiving the unfortunate information, the Governor, Umaru Mohammed Bago, directed that we do everything humanly possible to ensure that the boy was given full medical attention.That is why we are here with the boy, and we thank God the boy has been given the needed medical attention and is now recuperating," he told journalists.
According to Dr. Tukur, the divisional police officer in charge of Rijau Divisional Command has already taken the police officer who shot the boy into custody for further investigation.