Cadet slumps and dies in police academy allegedly due to starvation

Tension erupted at the Nigeria Police Academy, Wudil, Kano State on Saturday morning when a 100-level course 9 police cadet, A.S. Jika, dropped dead after being continuously starved and malnourished for over two weeks.

According to The Punch, some of the cadets alleged that the Commandant, Assistant Inspector-General, Sadiq Abubakar was high-handed and financially mismanaged the feeding allowance meant for the students.

Jika, a native of Adamawa state, was in the Department of Computer Science. He was said to have collapsed inside the toilet in the early hours of Saturday. A cadet told The Punch that the victim was rushed to the academy’s clinic.

“He was left untreated because there are no drugs and no medical officer to attend to him in the unconducive environment, before he gave up and died,” the source added.

A separate source said it was a normal occurrence for cadets to collapse and there was usually high traffic of sickly recruits at the unequipped clinic on a daily basis.

He said; “Since the new commandant assumed office, they’ve been providing very bad and inadequate food for us. The boy that died was not up to 20 years old. The boy wouldn’t have died if they’d attended to him. The commandant also ordered the closure of the market and laundry and approved undeserved training exercises during lecture hours.

“Cadets collapse daily here during training due to fatigue, because it’s either they’re starved, malnourished, or both. We’re usually threatened by the commandant and forced to engage in unwarranted training exercises. Also, many cadets have been dismissed on the basis that they fell sick; that’s why many are trying to manage themselves to avoid expulsion from the academy.”