Ogun State Police Denies Killing Remo Star Footballer Tiamiyu Kazeem, Says He Was Only Arrested For Wearing Military Cap

The Ogun State Police Command has denied allegation that an officer of the Special Anti-Robbery (SARS) Squad caused the death of Tiamiyu Kazeem, a Remo Star football player on February 22 in Sagamu, Ogun State. 

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, on February 23 said the footballer was not killed by a policeman as widely reported but by an on-coming vehicle.

Oyeyemi stated that the player was arrested by a police inspector for wearing a military cap and was being taken to the Zonal Intervention Squad (ZIS) office in Obada in a police operational vehicle.

According to the PRO, the vehicle developed a fault on the road and was being fixed when Kazeem jumped out and ran away but was crushed to death by an oncoming vehicle.

Remo Stars Football Club had on February 22 confirmed the death of the player alleging that a SARS official pushed him from their van onto an oncoming speeding car.

The Media Officer of the club, Dimeji Oshode, who said this in a statement, stated that the incident occurred along Sagamu, Ogun state while Kazeem was in his car with one of his teammates, Sanni Abubakar.

The club stated that some SARS men flagged down the deceased, popularly known as Kaka, labelled him an Internet fraudster otherwise known as Yahoo boy and insisted on taking him to a nearby police station.

In the statement, Oshode stated that;

The SARS officers stopped Tiyamiyu Kazeem insisting that he was a Yahoo Boy. He brought out his identity card to identify himself as a player of Remo Stars FC but the officer insisted on taking him to the nearest police station in Sagamu.

Kazeem and Sanni followed the SARS officers, only for them to notice that they (the SARS men) were driving towards Sagamu-Abeokuta Expressway. The guys asked to know where the SARS officers were taking them to, but this prompted them to stop the car and pushed Kazeem out of the car, and an unknown vehicle knocked him down.

The player was said to have been rushed to Fakoya Hospital in Sagamu, where he was confirmed dead. Until his death, he was the assistant captain and defender of the football team.