FUNNAB student commits suicide after lamenting brush with SARS officials

• Another lady kills self over depression

Oluwaseyi Akinade, a student of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, aged 23, yesterday committed suicide due to alleged arrest and torture by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and loss of 20,000 US dollars to Forex Trading. He was discovered dead yesterday morning after drinking poison.

In his suicide note seen by our reporter, Oluwaseyi narrated that his experience at the police cell on February 2, this year, which made him miss a presentation at school, left his life in shambles and hurting himself proved to be the only option left to him.

According to him, he had been having a series of a nightmare since his arrest by the SARS officials. He said the scenario had been haunting him for months and had given him nightmares as in his dream, the police would appear to him and whisked him away just as it happened months ago. “I wake up with chest pain.”

He said: “I was in my hostel working on my post data slides because I had to present the next day when all of a sudden these SARS official entered my room. It was around 10:00 p.m. at night and I still had my generator on. Maybe that was why they came to my room first, they just collected my laptop and phones. My friends were also in my room, we were all told to dress up and come outside, one of my friends was given a dirty slap for practically not dressing up fast enough “what did we do?” I kept asking. They didn’t say anything and they threatened to waste me if I don’t stop asking silly questions.

“We were handcuffed like armed robbers, all 17 of us, we were squeezed into small cars like goats to the slaughter, and from camp Abeokuta, we were taken down to Ibara police station. Immediately, we got there, I decided to plead with who was in charge that I had a presentation in school the next day, that they should please let me go early because at that time it was 12noon but he said I will have to pay 200,000!

“I told him to go through my phone that I am not a fraudster and that I am a forex trader. He went through my phone and my friend’s phone there was nothing implicating there, except for the bank alerts and that money were not even mine, I told him they were investor’s money.

“Meanwhile, I had opened a trade on my trading platform before they came to arrest us, I also pleaded with them to give me access to my phone so I can close the trade. Maybe they thought I wanted to call someone so, they slapped me for requesting for my phone, the trade kept running till the next day.

“I slept in the cell that night for doing nothing, the police slapped and beat us, prisoners also dealt with us when we entered the cell. I cried till the next morning not because I was slept in the cell for doing nothing but because I was on a losing trade with thousands of dollars online and I was going to miss my project presentation, which cannot be repeated.

“I was paraded like a thief in the morning and they were asking us what we did, with tears in my eyes I said “nothing” they still slapped me and told me to admit I’m a fraudster.

“Without having anything incriminating on my phone! That day I lost almost 20,000 dollars to trading and I missed my presentation in school. They still wanted to collect bail after beating and harassing us for nothing. Since then I’ve been in massive debt, I couldn’t complete my education.

“And my life has been in shambles, I have receipts for everything I said on here incase anyone thinks I’m lying. Suicide has been the only thought on my mind every day. So incase I hurt myself and anyone is curious as to why I did it. This is my story.”

Oluwaseyi’s brother, Toye insisted that his brother committed suicide out of depression due to the way SARS officials treated him.

“My younger brother died earlier this morning and I can’t help beating myself up for missing the clues he left as to what he was going through. My theory is that he committed suicide out of depression based on the way SARS officials treated him. It’s definitely a crime to be Nigerian. Nigeria won’t rest until it takes your life! He was learning how to draw from me. Though he was in school, he ran a forex trading Enterprise. He did legit, he always wanted to be legit and Nigeria killed him for it. Up Nigeria! You guys have done it again,” he told The Guardian.

Also, another young Nigerian, Adeleke Rachel Tioluwani, on Tuesday night committed suicide 11 months after writing about “depression and suicide” on her Facebook post. The deceased’s friends who mourned her exit on social media disclosed that Tioluwani was facing lots of challenges, which pushed her into depression and suicide.

It was gathered that before her death, Tioluwani who was in psychological pain and had no father-figure in her life, was practically nursing and taking care of her mum, self-sponsoring herself in school with no assistance from anywhere.

Tayo Fasuan wrote: “At the height of my intense pain and sadness yesterday, I snapped, and started feeling a sense of eerie calmness resulting from resignation about Tolu’s demise. I’m still hoping this is a bad joke though, and she came would come to say this is her own version of April Fool.

“Tolu had always been an enigma, and despite our relationship from just last year, we didn’t even meet for once. She approached me for mentorship for fiction writing, and I told her she didn’t need my help since she was already so good in expressing herself through written poems. She had ways with words, and she was meant for greatness with an imaginative mind that would rival anyones.

“We started working together eventually, becoming perhaps the first official member of FictionWrit Magazine. However, a few weeks into working with her, I realised she was troubled. At first, I thought it was financial after talking with her, and I told her I will be sending upkeep money to her when she explained her issue with schooling. She rejected that, and I had to convince her that I would be paying for her writings instead. That seemed acceptable with her, and we proceeded.

“Weeks later, she had another issue. She was having issues with her boss, the founder of a writer community. It was a messy affair, and in my attempts to help her resolve it, I realised she was a ticking time bomb, walking all over eggs all her life. She was still very secretive, refusing to open up completely, but she let me in enough to catch a glimpse of the hell she was going through. At that young age of hers, she was going through what she shouldn’t be going through. With no father figure in her life, and she practically nursing/taking care of her mum, self-sponsoring her schooling with virtually no assistance from anywhere, she was in perpetual psychological pain.”