A Child’s Life Lost to State-Sanctioned Recklessness
Yesterday, in the heart of Benin City, a three-year-old girl was killed in a senseless tragedy that should never have happened. She was not sick. She was not in harm’s way. She was simply by her mother’s side, at a small POS kiosk near Ring Road, when death came crashing into her—a direct result of the reckless, unchecked actions of the so-called Public Safety Response Team (PSR), a unit of untrained enforcers empowered by the Edo State Government under the Okpebholo administration.
Eyewitness accounts paint a harrowing picture. These state-backed touts, under the command of their infamous leader, Kelly Okungbowa (Ebo Stone), attempted to wrest control of a moving bus from its driver, presumably in a bid to extort him. In the struggle, the vehicle swerved violently, careening into the roadside kiosk where the little girl and her mother stood. The impact was fatal. The child was smashed against concrete slabs, dying on the spot.
A life stolen. A mother shattered. A city outraged.
This is not an accident. It is the inevitable consequence of a government outsourcing revenue collection to violent, untrained thugs rather than utilizing the cashless, digitized system introduced by the previous administration. This is what happens when governance is replaced by gangsterism.
The question now is, who will take responsibility?
The child’s death has nothing to do with politics but everything to do with accountability. No parent should have to mourn a child lost to such foolishness. No government should be allowed to look away. The PSR enforcers involved were reportedly beaten by an enraged crowd and taken, along with the child’s body, to a nearby police station. But mob justice is not justice. True justice must come from the government that empowered these killers in the first place.
Governor Okpebholo must act—immediately and decisively. He must disband this criminal enterprise masquerading as a public safety unit, hold its members accountable, and return to a system that does not weaponize revenue collection. Anything less is complicity in murder.
A child is dead. A mother is grieving. Edo must not look away.
Arc. Osaro Mathew Aikhionbare