Hassan Alfa

2013

Kano, Kano State.

Hassan Alfa was 24, and his brother Awwalu Alfa 25, when members of SARS stormed their house in 2013 to take them away on false and unfounded armed robbery charges.

At the police station, they were subjected to beating and inhumane torture until Hassan Alfa went unconscious. The Police then took him to Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital at around 3am, when his health became dire. They brought him back by morning. 

However, Hassan started to bleed through the ears and mouth. After nine hours of pleading from Awwalu who himself was barely alive, the SARS officers called his father to come take him to the hospital. 

Hassan was in a coma at the hospital for six days. 

On the 26th of October 2013, he died. 

Represented by Bulama Bukarti esq., the family filed a civil action at the Federal High Court. The court found the officers guilty of murder as Hassan had died from the head injury he sustained from the beating. The judge ordered that they pay 10 million naira in damages to the family, and gave an order for public apology. None has been granted, seven years later. 

“Do you know that the man responsible for Hassan’s death is now the oga kpata kpata of SARS?”, his father asks in a tone that suggests that it is still an unforgivable and bewildering thing to him. 

Hassan loved trade and had the talent for it, says his brother Awwalu. “He was waiting for his offer of admission from a university in Egypt to study Business Administration when the whole ordeal began.”

The offer came three days after his death.

Killer officer: Yusuf Kolo