After IGP Egbetokun Claimed Police or Military Fired No Live Bullet. Army Has Now Confessed to Killing 16-Year-Old Boy in Zaria

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The Nigeria Army has admitted one of its soldiers killed Ismail Mohammed, a 16-year-old boy, in Zaria during the #EndBadGovernance protest.

Onyema Nwachukwu, the Army Public Relations director, shared this in a statement on Wednesday after social media videos showed Mohammed’s body next to a parked military van.

The army stated that its troops “received a distress call that some hoodlums gathered in Samaru in large numbers, burning tires on the road and pelting stones on security personnel”.

Those troops went to the scene to enforce the curfew the Kaduna State Government had imposed on its citizens, the army said.

“On arrival at the scene, the hoodlums brazenly attempted attacking the troops prompting a soldier to fire a warning shot to scare the hoodlums away, which unfortunately led to the death of a 16-year-old boy Ismail Mohammed,” the army claimed.

“The soldier involved has since been arrested and undergoing interrogation as at the time of this report.”

All this happened while Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector-General of Police, claimed that the military didn’t shoot live bullets during the protests.

“The police and the military, and indeed no other security agency involved in the management of this protest, have deployed excessive use of force,” the IGP had said.

“Instead, what we had were attacks on security agents during the protest. From our record, there was no shooting incident by the police. The police or military did not use any live ammunition in the management of these protests.”

There have been multiple forms of violence and threats from security forces during the #EndBadGovernance protest.

One police officer threatened to kill protesters in Kano if any harm came to his colleagues.

Sixteen-year-old Mohammed killed by the army has been buried by his family, according to Islamic rites.