Key points

• Al-Amin Mohammed, 30, died days after his release from Agodi Custodial Centre, where he was remanded after his family could not raise a reported N100,000 bail demand.
• Police said the charges concerned assault and damage to a N177,000 device, but the charge sheet’s second count cites the N8,000 debt.
• Lawyers say Section 32(2) of the Police Act 2020 bars arrest over a civil debt, and the woman who seized his phone was never questioned.

New details in the death of Al-Amin Mohammed, a 30-year-old polytechnic student who died days after being released from prison over a dispute that began with an N8,000 debt, point to serious questions about how the Oyo State Police Command handled the case.

Saturday PUNCH found that police did not interrogate or arrest the woman accused of taking Al-Amin’s phone while he slept, the act that set the whole chain in motion.

Instead, he was the one detained at the Sanyo Police Division, taken to court when his family could not meet a reported N100,000 bail demand, and remanded at Agodi Custodial Centre.

Al-Amin, who combined aluminium work with his studies in Kwara State, died a few days after his release.

What the charge sheet says

After the initial report, police spokesperson Ayanlade Olayinka insisted Al-Amin was prosecuted for assault and malicious damage to an Airtel SIM registration machine worth N177,000, and that the charges had nothing to do with the debt.

However, the charge sheet reviewed by the paper tells a different story. It lists conduct likely to breach public peace and damage to an Itel phone valued at N177,000. More significantly, the second count contains the N8,000 debt.

The dispute began when Al-Amin took N23,000 from Iya Ajike, an apprentice at a POS business run by Kazeem Mukaila. He transferred N15,000, said he had hit his daily limit and promised the balance later.

When it did not arrive, she found him asleep and took his phone. A scuffle followed when he came to reclaim it, during which the business device was allegedly damaged. A vigilante then handed him to police.

“He suffered because he was poor”

Isiaka Ayole, a retired deputy superintendent who posted Al-Amin’s bail, said the young man repeated one line as they left the prison: that he had been punished because he had no connections.

Ayole, a former chief investigator, argued police should have mediated, especially after the complainant said he only wanted his money and the parents offered to sign an undertaking.

Al-Amin’s father, Habeeb Mohammed, said the family sold belongings and sought alms to meet bail terms, and that his mother sold her phone to afford transport and food for prison visits. “He was our shining light,” he said.

Lawyers went further. Constitutional lawyer Musbau Saheed said seizing property over a debt without a court order is theft and conversion under the Criminal Code, and that Section 32(2) of the Police Act 2020 forbids arrest over a civil wrong. Detaining the debtor while ignoring the seizure, he said, was “double wrong.”

Okechukwu Nwanguma of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre called for an independent review of the entire chain, from the debt to the remand, to establish whether the criminal process became leverage for a private debt.

Psychologist Bola Lawal said humiliation, debt and detention can drive vulnerable people toward hopelessness, but stressed that help is always available.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to a trusted person or a mental health professional.