Police Target Students, Gun-down Three In A Week
Police bullets have again felled two students, whom were identified as Morakinyo Akerele, a 200 level undergraduate students of the chemical engineering department, and Mr. Nnamdi Ekwuyasi, students of the Informative Computer
College both of the University of Lagos. The incidence, which happened Saturday, June 22 at Falomo, in Ikoyi area of Lagos State, is coming barely a week after a police sergeant shot dead a 15 year-old schoolgirl in Iju,
Lagos.
A mobile policeman stationed at the Falomo roundabout checkpoint was said to have shot the students.
According to an eyewitness account, the dead students in company of two others were about approaching the checkpoint when they were suddenly flagged down, and while the car was trying to pull up the mobile policeman stationed a short distance beyond the
police stop line shot at the students. Police sources revealed that the police at Ikoyi Police Station for further police investigation into the cause of the incident have detained the two other occupants of the car in which the victims were shot.
Meanwhile, seven mobile policemen, including an Assistant Superintendent of Police, who allegedly conspired while at their duty post to perpetrate the shooting to death of the two
students.
The seven suspects, who were arraigned before the Chief Magistrate court for three-count charge, had their pleas turned down.
The Magistrate, Mrs. Bola Osunsani adjourned the case till July 15 2002, while ordering the accused persons to be remanded in Ikoyi Prison. All the accused persons pleaded innocence of the crime, as they said that they were being punished for an offense they
did not commit, saying that the real culprit was still at large.
One of them betrayed his emotions as he shed tears openly, saying, “my wife has just put to bed, who will take care of her and the kids?”
Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, has directed that henceforth, Commissioners of Police, Area Commanders and Divisional Police Officers will be held liable for any reported case of shooting of defenseless citizens in any police
command area.
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