Six policemen arrested over killing in Nigeria's Lagos state

LAGOS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Six policemen in the Nigeria police force have been arrested in Nigeria's economic hub, Lagos State, following the killing of a 40-year-old man, Semiu Murtala, in his car on Saturday, according to the Lagos-based Punch newspaper reports on Tuesday.

   The deceased was said to be returning from a soccer practice onS aturday and was racing to beat the 7 a.m. local time commencement of the state monthly environmental sanitation exercise, when he was killed.

   According to the newspaper report, the trigger-happy policemen attached to the Idimu police station, a suburb area in Lagos, were said to be on patrol when the gory incident happened.

   Police authorities in the state had ordered the divisional police officer at Idimu, to fish out the culprits.

   It is learnt that a protest by youths in the area followed the dastardly act before the monarch in the area, Samson Balogun, intervened.

   Mallam Abdullah, the divisional police officer at Idimu, said all the policemen in the team that allegedly killed Murtala had been identified and ordered to be detained at the station.

   The spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Frank Mba, confirmed the arrest of the errant policemen, noting the police will surely make a discrete investigation into the matter.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/04/content_8308812.htm

One really has to ask, so if there was no protest does that mean that it would have been business as usual? Also keep in mind that this sort of trigger happy rubbish happens all the time, so how on earth will increasing salary as some have suggested improve the Nigerian police attitude towards the citizens they are meant to protect? If these police officers are not punished and thrown in jail and all the fiasco is allowed to die out then things will just continue. What happened to the officers that were selling weapons and ammunition to the Niger Delta militants? The Nigerian police force needs to be seriously rehabilitated, it is such a national disgrace that is just an indication of the wide spread decay in Nigerian institutions. These officers must be prosecuted. One more reason why state police forces might be a good idea so that states have more control over the disciplining and recruitment of police officers which at present is in federal control

men read this article in punch as well,its a sad stuff
a life wasted like that,but men the guy could have at least stopped
why was he running when he didnt carry cocaine or guns?
at times self we kill ourselves with the moves we make, am sure he wouldnt have been shot
if he had waited and expalined that he is trying to beat the timeline for enviromental,
worst thing they would arrest him for that day or delay him or something other than kill him.

well those policefoolsmen deserved to be punished sha,their fingers can get so itchy at times due to lack of something to shoot at.

police kill more than 50 Nigerians everyday all around the country. some would die in cell after torture, others are shot point blank, for all kind of reasons.

what do you expect from policemen who are ill trained , corrupt , allways drunk and carrying gun.

What happened to rule of law ?? How long are these men going to be detained for??

Kobojunkie:

What happened to rule of law ?? How long are these men going to be detained for??

well i guess till the case has been settled and they are pronounced guilty or otherwise.thats hoping they dont get released b4 then,cos law can be funny at times.
as for ROL well thats why they've been arrested shows they aint above the law.

@SENATORJD, were they arrested because they are not above the law or arrested because there was a mob vying for their blood? Make the distiction, this kind of thing happens a lot, someone runs to the police station during mob action because they want protection not because they will be prosecuted. I believe it is more likely that they were detained for their own protection. If these police officers are dealt with, as far as i know it would be an exception to the rule. What about the police officers who shot at a taxi driver in Port Harcourt because the guy would not give them 20Naira. The bullet missed the guy and hit a pregnant lady and the lady died. Can you believe that? Because of 20Naira. Again, these are not one off, they happen in Nigeria. If care is not taking then when all the commotion dies down these officers will just be let loose. I think it is vital that these officers are prosectuted, if a mob is needed to make it happen then so be it. A precedence needs to be set.

SENATOR JD:

well i guess till the case has been settled and they are pronounced guilty or otherwise.thats hoping they don't get released before then,because law can be funny at times.
as for ROL well thats why they've been arrested shows they aint above the law.

ummm,  if rule of law is about just having them arrested after some people protested, then I say we have the same old nonsense we have had for years and no change at all. I don't know if you have lived in Lagos before, but this sort of thing is typical and if these men get released, that is a bad sign that rule of law may not be changing life at the ground level at all.

May I ask that we all start DEMANDING better treatment instead of continuing to accept fluff offered us and then making excuses for why it is so.

@skyblue, i aint in support of what they did oo,cos it was totally nonsense,i have almost lost a friend when they shot at a their car because it refused to stop where they wanted it to stop.one might say they were only arrested because of the mob,well true very true lets believe somethong good would come out of it and it wont just die down after some time.yes they should be prosecuted and given the appropriate sanction cos what the did was totally wrong.

Kobojunkie:

I don't know if you have lived in Lagos before

i have lived a greater percentage of my life in lagos and i HATE the police with a passion,cos we have a percentage of them that doesn't think,i have bin stopped and asked ridiculous questions in lagos, have had rides have driven almost bashed cos of their recklessnes while driving,i have bin harrased by one at one point in time, so am permitted to HATE some of them.

as much as one would blame the police totally for firing at the victim,one has to realize like i wrote earlier

SENATOR JD:

a life wasted like that,but men the guy could have at least stopped
why was he running when he didnt carry cocaine or guns?
at times self we kill ourselves with the moves we make, am sure he wouldnt have been shot
if he had waited and expalined that he is trying to beat the timeline for enviromental,
worst thing they would arrest him for that day or delay him or something other than kill him.

of blessed memory to him i feel he should have waited to explain or say something,ordinarily in any country if the Police/military should flag u down at any point in time while driving and u speed off without stopping,automatically u have triggered a suspicion on ur path about something(shooting is not the right thing to do doe) but really one cant blame them for any action they take against u,lets be sincere with ourselves the police have a huge blame cos some officers are indisciplined and lack wisdom but that guy was wrong to have sped off.

@SENATOR u said you got your info from punch. Just to be sure i was not missing anything i just read the punch article. Where does it say he sped off and refused to stop? You also have to keep in mind that there have been a significant ammount of incidences whereby armed robbers dress up as police officers to rob people at check points. Considering that most of the time check points serve no purpose than to provide police officers with citizens to stop and collect 20Naira from or more, shouldn't these checkpoints be scrapped? Still, staying on the topic, can you please show where it said he sped off and refused to stop, hence the shooting?

Sky Blue:

@SENATOR u said you got your info from punch. Just to be sure i was not missing anything i just read the punch article. Where does it say he sped off and refused to stop?Still, staying on the topic, can you please show where it said he sped off and refused to stop, hence the shooting?

@SKYBLUE first question how many articles on this piece did u read?obviously one of it which was
SIX POLICEMEN ARRESTED OVER KILLING
By Kunle Adeyemi
Tuesday Punch June 3 2008
page 12.

did u read the one that preceded it?no u didnt, because if u did u wont be asking me stupid questions?

POLICE BRUTALITY CLAIMS ONE LIFE IN LAGOS
By Mudiga Afe
Sunday Punch JUNE 1 2008
page 13

paragraph 3: An eye witness said d victim was being pursued in his dark green NISSAN Xterra jeep marked BF54EPE by two policemen on a motorcycle.
Q:@ skyblue do u pursue anything that is not moving?

Paragraph 8: Another witness said that Murtala(d deceased) and Gani left the school to beat the 7am-10am environmental sanitation of lagos state government,but were stopped at okunola bus-stop by a team of policemen.
Paragraph 9: he said that after they(murtala and gani) refused to stop the policemen opened fire on the vehicle shattering the rear windscreen while they pursued the car to the next bus stop (orelope) on idinmu road from where another bullet was released which piecered through the left backdoor hitting the driver.
Q: again i ask do u pursue anything that is not moving? if they stopped would they have been pursued from one bus stop to another?

@Sky blue pleassssssssssssss get your facts straight before u argue,cos obviously u didnt know about the first article,
what the policemen did was totally wrong and deserved to be punished and charged for it but the guys were not totally right were they?except we discard the papers report that said they didnt stop.maybe the papers are lying?
Need I say more?I don't think so

@SENATOR

Nice replies man.Sometimes, the dummy questions asked on NL baffle the living daylights outta me.

Simply outrageous.