Seyi Akinade, a Nigerian student, has reportedly committed suicide after he had narrated his experience with officials of the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS).

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On Wednesday, a man, who claimed to be his older stepbrother, took to Twitter to mourn Akinade, barely a day after the latter had tweeted about suicide and being fed up with life.

The stepbrother, with the Twitter handle (@Comeback_snarky), alleged that Akinade had resorted to taking his own life out of depression from the maltreatment that was meted out on him by SARS officials in February 2020.

“It’s definitely a crime to be Nigerian. Nigeria won’t rest until it takes your life!” he wrote.

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“My brother died this morning. I can’t help beating myself up for missing the clues he left.

“My theory is that he committed suicide out of depression based on the way SARS officials treated him. His post yesterday and some of the hints he has been leaving on twitter this past week.

“I don’t even know how to feel right now, I just feel empty. He was learning how to draw from me… Tho he was in school, he ran a forex trading Enterprise.

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“Many people can attest to the fact that Seyi is not a Yahoo boy. He did legit, he always wanted to be legit and Nigeria killed him for it. Up Nigeria! You guys have done it again!”

In Akinade’s last message on Twitter, to which only a few responded, the young man had written: “I guess its goodbye now. No one heard my cry for justice and this had to happen. Bye world.”

While narrating his ordeal with SARS officials, Akinade had explained how his “unwarranted” arrest by police authorities on fraud accusations cost him his education and left him with debt.

The juvenile, who described himself as a forex trader, said he had lost nearly $20,000 and missed his school presentation after being arrested, beaten, and made to spend the night in custody.

He added that his life had been left in shambles ever since, leaving him contemplating suicide each day after the police had demanded bail, despite not explaining what his crime had been.

Below is the full statement from Akinade’s April 17 Twitter thread:

“It happened again tonight, I had the same nightmare that’s been reoccurring for months now since the incident happened, same faces. SARS officials in their black uniform carrying us away in the dead of the night and I wake up with serious chest pain from fear of what I was about to experience.

“It happened on the 2nd of February 2020 I was in my hostel working on my post-data slides because I had to present the next day. All of a sudden, these SARS officials entered my room. It was around 10 pm at night and I still had my generator on.

“Maybe that was why they came to my room first. They just collected my laptop and phones. My friends were also in my room. We were all told to dress up and come outside. One of my friends was given a dirty slap for practically not dressing up fast enough. ‘what did we do?’ I kept asking.

“They didn’t say anything and they threatened to waste me if I didn’t stop asking silly questions. We were handcuffed like armed robbers, all 17 of us. We were squeezed into small cars like goats to the slaughter. From camp Abeokuta, we were taken down to the Ibara police station.

“Immediately we got there, I decided to plead with who was in charge that I had a presentation in school the next day; that they should please let me go early because, at that time, it was 12 in the midnight already. He said I will pay 200k! Ha! For what? I told him to go through my phone.

“I am not a fraudster. I’m a forex trader. He went through my phone and my friend’s phone there was nothing incriminating there, except for the bank alerts and those monies were not even mine. I told him they were investors’ money. I forgot to mention I opened a trade on my trading platform.

“Before they came to arrest us, I also pleaded with them to give me access to my phone so I can close the trade or something. They thought I wanted to call someone and they slapped me for requesting my phone. The trade kept running till the next day.

“I slept in a cell that night for doing nothing. Police will slap you and beat you, prisoners will beat you when you enter the cell too! I cried till the next morning not because I was sleeping in a cell for doing nothing but because I was on a losing trade with thousands of dollars on the line.

“Also because I was going to miss my project presentation which cannot be repeated. I was paraded like a thief in the morning and they were asking us what we did. With tears in my eyes, I said ‘nothing’. They still slapped me and told me to admit I’m a fraudster.

“Without having anything incriminating on my phone! That day, I lost almost $20,000 trading. I missed my presentation at school. They still wanted to collect bail after beating and harassing us for nothing. Since then, I’ve been in massive debt. I couldn’t complete my education.

“And my life has been in shambles. I have receipts for everything I said on here in case anyone thinks I’m lying. Suicide has been the only thought on my mind every day. So, in case, I hurt myself and anyone is curious as to why I did it. This is my story.”

Meanwhile, some Nigerians have taken to Twitter to pour out their annoyance using the hastag #JusticeForSeyiAkinade.

Here is what some Nigerians had to say:

Before now, stories have been told of SARS officials harassing civilians and gunning down others, with Nigerians severally taking to social media in protest, mostly through the “EndSars” hashtag.



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