The Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Students Engagement, Sunday Asefon, has called for justice for Stephen Opaso, a Nigerian student at the University of Manitoba in Canada who was killed in the country.
Asefon, in a statement on Saturday, described the alleged killing of the student by the police as “barbaric, cruel, and heartless”.
He vowed to engage the High Commission of Canada in Nigeria, and further collaborate with Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairperson of NiDCOM to ensure that the killing was not swept under the carpet.
Opaso, a 19-year-old Nigerian student in Canada, fondly called Zigi, was shot dead by the Winnipeg Police Service in Manitoba on December 31, 2023.
The deceased was alleged to be wielding a knife at the time of the encounter and had a mental health crisis when the incident occurred.
The Winnipeg Police, in their statement, acknowledged the confrontation with an armed male but provided limited details.
The police said: “On December 31, 2023, at approximately 2:22 p.m., the Winnipeg Police service responded to an apartment suite in the first 100 block of University Crescent for a 911 call regarding a male acting erratically.
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“The caller advised that the male may be armed and there were other people in the suite.
“During this encounter, an officer discharged their firearm, striking the male. Officers provided immediate medical care and ensured the well-being of all other parties on scene. Nobody else was injured.
“The male was transported to hospital in critical condition and succumbed to his injuries.”
Asefon, however, said the impression in the public as gathered during an interaction with the official of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) earlier on the case, was that the killing was racially motivated.
He said the late student was not welding a gun at the time of the incident, adding that the police officers would have acted differently if he were to be a white.
The presidential aide, therefore, appealed to NANS and the Nigerian students to remain calm, vowing to follow the case up diligently untill the Canadian authorities gave true account of the death of the Nigerian student.
Asefon said his office would also see to it that the deceased family was compensated accordingly, to avoid a diplomatic row that might lead to the closure of their embassy in Nigeria by the Nigerian student Apex body NANS as earlier threatened.
He further called on Nigerian students in Canada to also remain peaceful, saying his office would ensure that justice is served.
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