JUSTICE FOR TIMOTHY DANIEL

The killer of Timothy Daniel should be fished out and brought to book

As with many families during Christmas season, Timothy Daniel, 13, and his parents travelled to his hometown in Ette, Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State to celebrate and welcome the new year. On the night of 31st December 2025, the family members went to a church in Ette to thank God for the fading year and commit 2026 into His hands. In the early hours of the new year, Timothy and the sibling reportedly stepped out to urinate in the open space separating the church from the neighbouring staff quarters of an oil and gas firm. That choice cost the JSS-2 student of Bensona International School, Borokiri, Port Harcourt, Rivers State his life.

An innocuous comment by Daniel’s 15 -year -old sister, Miracle, reportedly infuriated one of the guard soldiers watching over the staff quarters and shot Daniel dead in an unprovoked attack that triggered public outrage. Even though the family reported the case to the police, and the Nigerian Army Cantonment 6 Battalion Wellington Basi Barracks, nobody has been held accountable. Authorities in the military must investigate the death of an innocent boy, fish out the soldier responsible and bring him to justice. That is the least we expect on this matter.

While we commiserate with the family of Daniel over their loss, his death follows a pattern of similar occurrences where security forces end up killing civilians they swore to protect. Indeed, extrajudicial killings by security personnel is commonplace and have been well documented across several decades. They shoot and kill protesters, groups, or innocent individuals, and on some rare cases, even turn guns on themselves. For instance, a trigger-happy police sergeant attached to the Elelenwo Police Division shot a 38-year-old man, Abiodun Jimoh, in Elelenwo community, in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State on 19th December 2020. The incident happened when a Police unit arrested the deceased and his younger brother, Ismail Jimoh, while they were returning from a party. “The officer that shot my brother was drunk because I could smell alcohol on him,” said Jimoh in a case that has some semblance with Daniel’s, but yet to be resolved. “He refused to let us go, saying we must enter the cell. Other four officers were telling him to let us go, but he refused to listen.”

In June 2021, the Enugu State Police Command confirmed that a police inspector killed five people, while leaving four others critically injured in an arbitrary shooting at the office of a lottery company. The state’s commissioner of police ordered an investigation to unravel the circumstances surrounding the case but nothing has been heard years after. Similarly, a 31-year-old motorcyclist, Saheed Olabomi, was shot by a police Sergeant escorting a high-ranking police chief in Osogbo, Osun State. And in another costly exercise in the careless handling of the gun, a Police officer attached to the Panti Division shot and killed an 18-year-old lady, during a raid in Surulere, Lagos. Last April, Ernest Ochowechi Owoicho, a father of two, was reportedly tortured to death by military officers under ‘Operation Whirl Stroke’ in Benue State.

As it is, after years of a promise by successive administrations to reform the security sector, nothing essentially has changed. Personnel of the army, police, civil defence, state security service and other agencies are still shooting at defenseless Nigerians at will. This is despite Section 33 of the Nigerian Constitution which guarantees the right to life. While we therefore urge authorities in the country to put an end to these criminal practices by those who ordinarily should uphold the law, it is important to ensure that the solider who killed Timothy Daniel is brought to justice.