A former Divisional Police Officer, DPO,
Segun Fabunmi, attached to Pen Cinema
Division of Lagos State Police Command,
Wednesday, told a Lagos High Court that
he could not explain how the ammunition
allocated to him left his rifle.
Fabunmi, who had been dismissed, is
standing trial for allegedly killing one
Ademola Daramola and injuring others
during the mass protest on fuel subsidy,
organized by Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC,
and Trade Union Congress, TUC, of Nigeria,
in January 9, 2012.
The alleged offence was committed at Yaya-
Abatan, Agege, during the protest.At the
resumed hearing of the trial, Fabunmi said
the AK-47 rifle was opened, while on his
way to the scene of protest, adding that
after Daramola died, he could no longer
remember how many rounds of
ammunition were left in the rifle until he
was about being detained.
Fabunmi, who was being cross-examined
by Lagos State Director of Public
Prosecution, DPP, Mrs. Olabisi
Ogungbesan, told Justice Olabisi Akinlade
that he neither chased anybody, shot nor
injured people.
He said: “I did not run after the late
Ademola Daramola, may his soul rest in
peace. I do not know him. Why would I
chase him? It is ridiculous. “I never ran to
anywhere neither did I fire any shot at
anybody.”The defendant also told Justice
Olabisi Akinlade that on January 9, 2012,
he received a distress call that hoodlums at
Yaya Abatan Junction, Ogba Agege area,
were breaking people’s windscreens and
holding innocent people hostage.
He said when he got there, there was break
down of law and order and that immediately
the hoodlums saw him and the other seven
police officers, they started throwing bottles,
sticks, cutlasses, stones and Molotov Curtails.
When asked if he knew that some ammunition
got out of his gun, Fabunmi said: ”Yes. I knew
that some ammunition got out of my gun
when the hoodlums were trying to dispossess
me of my rifle, after I sustained injury.“It
took the grace of God for them not to have
collected the rifle from me. The other police
officers all ran away.”He said he had only
been DPO of Pen Cinema Police Division for
two months and that he went to Lagos State
University Teaching Hospital for treatment,
but that he could not remember the name of
the doctor that treated him.
However, Justice Akinlade adjourned the
matter to February 18, 2015, for the
adoption of written addresses