Controversy has trailed the death of a singer, Richard Dayom, who was allegedly crushed to death by a police patrol van in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State.
It was gathered that Dayom was coming back from church on Sunday around 4pm when policemen from the Sagamu Road Division allegedly chased the motorcycle he boarded. He was said to have fallen off the motorcycle along the Ogonlonto BRT lane and was allegedly crushed to death by a patrol van.
The deceased was a close friend of Timmy Sinclair (Trikytee), one of the housemates in the just concluded reality TV show, Big Brother Naija.
Sinclair, in a post on his Instagram page on Monday, mourned the deceased.
“Words fail me…we spoke just a few days ago…Rip Bro… Still cannot believe it,” he wrote.
However, the police claimed that the Plateau State indigene was crushed to death by a hit-and-run driver.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, explained that the motorcyclist was hit from the rear by the driver of a white bus on a BRT lane.
He said, “The motorcyclist and the driver of a white bus plied the BRT lane and in the process of avoiding arrest, the motorcyclist made a U-turn on the corridor and was hit by the bus driver; the passenger fell and died.
“No police vehicle crushed the motorcycle or the victim; it was a hit-and-run vehicle that hit the victim and the motorcyclist escaped.
“Immediately the matter happened, a radio signal was sent to the nearest division and that was when the Sagamu Road division got involved in the incident and picked the corpse. We could not trace the vehicle because nobody took his number plate for us.”