- Ikeri was a 27-year-old businessman who was suffocated to death during torture by the police
- He was arrested on suspicion of trafficking in hard drug alongside another Nigerian
- NAN reports that a total of 116 Nigerians have been killed in South Africa in the last two years through extrajudicial means
The Nigeria Union in South Africa has confirmed the killing of a member named Kingsley Ikeri at Vryheid town in Kwazulu Natal Province on Wednesday, August 30.
According to the Union, 27-year-old Ikeri was a businessman and native of Mbaitolu in Imo.
Chairman of the union in the province Bartholomew Eziagulu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Durban on Friday, September 1 that Ikeri was allegedly tortured to death by the police.
He said the union’s investigations revealed that the police arrested the deceased and a friend on suspicion that they were carrying hard drug.
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He said while interrogating him, the police used plastic to cover his face to extort information from him.
He said: “In the process, they suffocated the deceased suffocated. When the police took him to the hospital, he was confirmed dead.”
Adetola Olubajo, the Secretary General of the union, said the national secretariat had been informed about the death of the Nigerian.
He said the body had informed appropriate Nigerian authorities and the police in South Africa.
NAN reports that a senior diplomat from the Nigerian Consulate in Johannesburg had visited Vryheid on a fact-finding mission.
Some members of the union and other Nigerians accompanied the diplomat to the town.
A total 116 Nigerians have been killed in South Africa through extrajudicial means in the last two years, according to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on foreign affairs and diaspora Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
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Seven in 10 of the killings were carried out by the South African Police.
The presidential aide disclosed this sometime in February when she met with the South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Lulu Louis Mnguni in Abuja.
In December 2016, Metropolitan Police in Cape Town had suffocated to death a man, Victor Nnadi, also from Imo.
NAIJ.com had reported that the Nigerian Union in South Africa just days ago on Thursday, August 17 announced that another Nigerian Uchenna Eloh was killed in the Western Cape Province of that country.
NAIJ.com gathered that Kanayo Onwumelu, Chairman, Western Cape chapter of the union, told NAN on telephone from Cape Town that Eloh was strangled to death by South African policemen.
Eloh hailed from Eziagu in Eziagu Local Government Area of Enugu state.
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