2013-03-18 00:00:46
Policemen attached to the Federal
Special Anti-Robbery Squad have
been accused of killing a 46-year-old
petty trader in Ijaye-Ojokoro, Lagos
State.
PUNCH Metro learnt that the
deceased, Eze Okoro, was killed last
Friday while the policemen were on
an anti-robbery operation.
The deceased's wife ,Ugonna, alleged
that the policemen snuffed out the life
of Eze few metres from his residence
at 1 Oguntolu Street, Ijaiye-Ojokoro.
Ugonna said her husband of over 15
years had just finished eating and had
gone to relax with a neighbour,
Chinedu Nnwanu, and his pregnant
wife, Nneka as he usually did when
there was power outage at night.
She said, "My husband had just
finished having dinner and he
stepped outside to see our
neighbours who live opposite our
house. They usually relax outside
whenever there is power outage.
"A few minutes before 11pm, we
heard sporadic gunshots and out of
panic, I held unto my seven-year-old
son and ran for cover. Few minutes
later when the shooting abated, I tried
to reach my husband on his mobile
phone but he was not picking it up."
Ugonna said at that point she started
to imagine that something was amiss.
"I summoned courage and stepped
out of the compound and
immediately noticed that my husband
and his friends were not at the spot. I
started yelling out my husband's
name but there was no answer," she
said.
She said after some time, some
neighbours informed her that from
their windows, they observed some
policemen carrying a man whom they
suspected was lifeless into their
vehicle.
In a state of confusion, she was able
to pull a call through to some of her
siblings and that of her husband who
immediately formed a search party for
their relation and the policemen who
were alleged to have taken away the
body
She said they visited the Ijaye-Ojokoro
Police Station under whose
jurisdiction the incident occurred but
all attempts to locate her husband
proved abortive.
"Our search that night failed to yield
the expected result as the officers on
duty claimed that no such incident
was ever reported to them neither
had any team of policemen told them
that they were operating in the area,"
she said.
Eze's widow said the following day,
some employees of a hotel in the area
told her that the policemen who had
come to operate the previous night
were from the Federal SARS.
She said she was told by a senior
officer that her husband was killed in
error and that his corpse had been
taken to Yaba Military Hospital's
morgue.
"On getting to Federal SARS
command, some junior officers
apparently wanting to cover up their
colleagues' error denied the
command's complicity in the killing.
However, a senior officer intervened
by not only admitting that they killed
Eze in error, but informed that his
corpse was deposited at the Yaba
Military Hospital's morgue," she said.
A resident, who craved anonymity,
said the policemen had also
attempted to kill others in the area
after mistaking them for robbers but
Eze was the only unfortunate person.
He said, "When the shooting started,
Eze and his friends were running
helter-skelter. The policemen first of all
approached Nneka but she
immediately shouted 'please don't
shoot me, I am pregnant'. That was
how she and her husband were
spared.
"After Nneka and Chinedu got inside,
we heard Eze begging the policemen
and shouting that he was not a thief
but the policemen obviously did not
believe him because we heard
gunshots soon after."
Eze's widow called on the police
authorities to make sure that her
husband's killers were brought to
justice.
When contacted on the telephone, the
spokesman for the Federal SARS,
Lekan Ogundare, said he was not
aware of the incident but promised to
find out.
www.punchng.com

when will extrajudicial kiling stops in this country.