The Kogi State Police Command has opened a full-scale investigation into the killing of a young graduate, Aminu Lawal, whose body was found brutally murdered in Lokoja after he went missing while working with his commercial tricycle.

Lawal, a recent graduate of the University of Maiduguri, had returned home to Otokiti Estate in Lokoja to await his National Youth Service Corps call-up. Family sources said he left home early one morning to operate his luggage tricycle, commonly known as Keke NAPEP, but failed to return at his usual time, prompting a frantic search by his parents and neighbours.

The search ended in tragedy when his charred remains were discovered the following day along an isolated bush path opposite the Central Bank in the Zone 8 area of Lokoja. Residents who saw the body said his head appeared to have been smashed with a heavy object and a major vein on the left side of his neck severed. His tricycle has not been recovered.

The gruesome discovery plunged Otokiti Estate into mourning, with relatives and neighbours describing Lawal as a determined young man who had struggled to sponsor himself through university in Maiduguri despite the insecurity in the North-East.

Community members, unwilling to wait in silence, began their own inquiries. Their efforts reportedly pointed to an acquaintance, identified as Garuba, who lives in the same estate and was said to be among the last people to call Lawal before his disappearance. Operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps later arrested Garuba and transferred the case to the State Criminal Investigations Department.

As rumours spread that influential interests were attempting to secure the suspect’s release, residents and family members raised alarm, insisting that the case must not be “swept under the carpet.”

Responding to the growing public concern, the Kogi State Police Command spokesperson, ASP Saliu Oyiza Afusat, confirmed that detectives are handling the case and dismissed claims that the suspect would be quietly freed.

It is not true that the police is under pressure to release the suspect. We are still investigating the case. We will probe it to a logical conclusion, she said, promising that the outcome of the investigation would be made public.

For Lawal’s grieving family, justice now hinges on whether the investigation can identify and prosecute everyone involved in the killing of the young graduate who never lived to wear the NYSC uniform he had long dreamed of.