Alhaji Suleiman Yerima, a business man accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of fraudulent activities, has died after slumping at the mosque on Eid-el-Fitr day.
The foreign exchange dealer, remanded at the Kirikiri Prisons, Lagos, died exactly three weeks after he was transferred to the prison pending court judgment on his case instituted by the anti-graft agency.
His trial started about three months ago after he was arrested and detained by the commission over an alleged N120 million foreign exchange (forex) fraudulent business transaction.
It was gathered that after the news of his death was broken to his family, they reportedly refused to accept the corpse until the prisons service fittingly explains why and how he died.
According to a source who prefered anonymity, the deceased died on Eid-el-Fitr day at the prisons mosque while prayers were going on.
He said: “On the day he died, he was hale and hearty. In fact, he had happily strolled down to the mosque inside the prisons to pray with other Muslim faithful.
“While prayers were going on, he suddenly slumped but the prison officials did not attend to him. They just left him there without rushing him to the clinic for medical attention.
“The other inmates didn’t even have inkling as to what happened because they were praying. The people that noticed were the wardens whose job is to monitor the inmates.
“It was after prayers that the other inmates who noticed that Alhaji did not get up, rushed to him but he was already dead by then.
“Although I cannot tell you the cause of his death, however I can tell you that Alhaji has been crying out that EFCC and some other powerful persons want him dead.
“As I am speaking to you now, his family has rejected attempts by the prisons service to foist the corpse on them for burial.
This is because the testimony they got from other inmates was contrary to the claims by the prisons service that Alhaji was sick and was taken to the sickbay, where he died.”
However, Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC spokesperson, said the suspect did not die in their custody.
He said: “He was remanded in prison custody by the court because the court has not delivered judgment yet. He was in prison custody and not ours.”
When asked the next step the commission would take as regarding the remaining suspect, he said the court would determine that.
The deceased ordeal began on March 3, 2015, when EFCC invited him in connection to a petition written against him and his friend, one Uwem Antia, by the duo of Denis Ale and Gladys Aginwa.
Before his detention, Late Yerima had petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in his case. He had alleged that Joseph Mbu, the assistant inspector general of police (AIG) had ordered the policemen under his jurisdiction to do horrible things, which even include piercing needle into one’s private part.
Responding to Yerima’s allegations, AIG Mbu last month said:
“I read in the papers about some people saying I ordered their torture. These are people who specialized in defrauding people. Somebody gave you N300m and asked for dollars, and the next day you disappeared. Those who borrowed from businesses have lost their capital, while those who worked in banks have lost their jobs.
“They failed to tell the press how they offered Dantoro [deputy superintendent of police] N50m so that the matter would be swept under the carpet. We will not allow injustice.”
In his petition, Yerima said the policemen led by one DSP Ibrahim Dantoro on Mbu’s instruction, allegedly buried their faces into buckets of water, pierced needle into Antia’s private part and inflicted life threatening injuries on his legs.
However, while Antia, through his lawyer, Kabir Akingbolu, appealed to the court to declare his ordeal in EFCC detention illegal with payment of N100 million as damages, Yerima sought for restriction against the commission.
EFCC, in a counter-affidavit, had however denied the allegation, stating that the criminal petition against Antia was that he allegedly defrauded the petitioner of the sum of N672,750,000, which he admitted to.
