NIGERIA: Detained EFCC Suspect Suleiman Yerima Reportedly Dies In Prison

A foreign exchange dealer and businessman, Alhaji Suleiman Yerima, who was remanded at the Kirikiri Prison, Lagos, has died after slumping at the mosque.



According to information gathered, Yerima, who is a suspect of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, died exactly three weeks after he was transferred and remanded to the prison pending court judgment on his case instituted by the EFCC.

A reliable source who pleaded anonymity said the deceased died on Eid-el-Fitr day at the prisons mosque while prayers were going on.

He said: “On the day he died, he was hale and hearty. In fact, he had happily strolled down to the mosque inside the prisons to pray with other Muslim faithful.

“While prayers were going on, he suddenly slumped but the prison officials did not attend to him. They just left him there without rushing him to the clinic for medical attention.

“The other inmates didn’t even have an inkling as to what happened because they were praying. The people that noticed were the wardens whose job is to monitor the inmates.

“It was after prayers that the other inmates who noticed that Alhaji did not get up, rushed to him but he was already dead by then.”

“Although I cannot tell you the cause of his death, however I can tell you that Alhaji has been crying out that EFCC and some other powerful persons want him dead.

“As I am speaking to you now, his family has rejected attempts by the prisons service to foist the corpse on them for burial.

“This is because the testimony they got from other inmates was contrary to the claims by the prisons service that Alhaji was sick and was taken to the sickbay, where he died.”

It would be recalled that his ordeal began on March 3, 2015, when EFCC invited him in connection to a petition written against him and his friend, Uwem Antia, by the duo of Denis Ale and Mrs. Gladys Aginwa.

He was then arrested and detained by the commission. After the news of his death was broken to his family, they reportedly refused to accept the corpse until the prisons service satisfactorily explains why and how he died.