The
circumstances that led to the torture and brutal murder of an innocent
police inspector over a land dispute has been revealed.
*Photo used for illustrative purpose*
Six months after a detective attached to the Special Anti- Robbery
Squad (SARS), Ikeja, Lagos State Police Command, disappeared into thin
air, his corpse has been found in a shallow grave at the Ibeju Lekki
area of the metropolis.
According to reports by NewTelegraph, the deceased, Inspector Musa
Sunday, was abducted, tortured and later buried alive while on illegal
duty at Ibeju Lekki. Sunday and four of his men were alleged to have
been drafted to guard a land, which was under dispute by their Admin
Officer (AO), at Ibeju Lekki.
It was gathered that the incident started as a result of land
dispute after he was drafted to the disputed land without the knowledge
of the Officer in Charge of SARS (OC) and the Lagos State Commissioner
of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni. The skeleton of the inspector, 45, a father
of four children, with their ages ranging from four, six, eight and 12,
was exhumed from a shallow grave after six months search.
At least five persons, including a traditional ruler, otherwise
known as Baale have been arrested in connection with the murder of the
inspector. A police source said: “The police are hunting for one Mr Balogun, who led the hoodlums that attacked, abducted and buried Sunday alive.
In fact, information at police disposal says that it was the
fleeing Balogun that tied his hands before burying him. Balogun’s second
in command, Arokin is in police custody. He’s helping police with
investigation.”
The suspects confessed to have buried him alive after starving him
for more than five days. They also admitted to have buried him alive on
the orders of a traditional ruler, who has interest in the land under
dispute.
Sunday was abducted sometimes in November, while guarding the
disputed land. The abductors made away with his rifle. The inspector,
who was the leader of the team, was on duty with four other policemen.
The abductors, alleged to be armed to the teeth, stormed the land
on that fateful day in November and over powered Sunday, his policemen
and civilian guards, patrolling. The civilian guards were there on the
instruction of one of the men struggling for possession of the land,
identified simply as Prince, living in Ikeja.
The Prince and his opponent had allegedly been fighting over
possession of the land for months. This has led to several people, from
both factions, being killed and maimed. A police source said that both
men had been warring, using paid thugs, until Prince decided to take
SARS men.
But rather than go through the proper channel, which was to contact
Owoseni or OC SARS, Prince went to his friend, the AO. When the AO
ordered Sunday with some policemen to the land, the Inspector couldn’t
argue with his superior.
Sunday was kidnapped when he confronted a large number of thugs
from the other faction. The thugs attacked, injured and attempted to
carry away some of Prince’s thugs. An inside source said: “Sunday’s men abandoned him and ran away because the thugs from the other faction large expanse of land.
The Prince came to SARS to get policemen to keep his opponent from encroaching on the land.”
After his abduction, his phone stopped going through. His colleagues
became frantic. Sunday’s wife and family members besieged the Lagos
State Police Command Headquarters, Ikeja, demanding to know what had
become of him. Speaking with a journalist a few months after the
abduction of Sunday, his wife, Halimat, 27, said:
“They were deployed there to maintain peace. We learnt that
hoodlums were attacking a man, so my husband and his men moved to rescue
the man. He told the other two policemen to go and put the man in the
car so he could be safe.
The hoodlums pounced on my husband and took him away. Sensing
danger as the hoodlums kept increasing in number, his men ran away.
Since then, we have not heard from him.” On the fateful day of the
incident, Halimat said that she spoke with Sunday around 4pm; he
promised to come home the following day.
In the evening, his kids demanded to speak with him, so Halimat
called his line repeatedly, but it didn’t go through. In the morning,
some of his colleagues called Halimat and told her what happened. Since
then, Halimat and Sunday’s family members had been visiting the police
headquarters in Lagos, praying and hoping.
She added, “Three months after, police kept telling us that
they were on the matter. We learnt they have arrested the Prince that
hired the hoodlums, but nothing has happened since then. His children
keep asking after him. His aged mother, who has high blood pressure, has
not stopped asking for his whereabouts. We don’t know what else to tell
her.”
Halimat, a housewife, noted that since Sunday’s disappearance, she
and her kids have been struggling to survive. She’s no longer able to
pay the kids’ school fees. She said: “Nobody from the police cared to
check on us, and now we don’t have money because we don’t have access to
his ATM pin.
I want my husband to come back. The children are suffering, and I can’t carry the load alone.” A police source said:
“Sunday was posted there with his team; they were five in number. Two
of the policemen later left, saying they were tired of the constant
threat.
Even soldiers that were supposed to guard the land with them
left, complaining that Prince had never bothered to ask about their
welfare. “Sunday has been on that land for almost three weeks when
bulldozer entered the land.
Prince’s faction was overpowered. Everyone scampered for
safety, but one of Prince’s thugs were held. Sunday ran back to save
him. It was in that split second that his policemen and the man he saved
drove off in a vehicle, leaving him.
Sunday was grabbed by the hoodlums, beaten and injured.” It
was gathered that the fleeing policemen ran to Mobile Police Force
(Mopol) 49, Epe. They explained that an inspector had been abducted,
that they needed help to rescue him, but the commander allegedly didn’t
respond to their pleas.
The policemen moved to Akodo Police Station, where a woman happened
to be the Divisional Police Officer (DPO). The DPO said she couldn’t
send anyone to the area because it was a volatile axis.
They went to SARS, Ikeja to report and for five days, no action was
taken to rescue Sunday. Later, policemen started looking for Sunday, to
the extent of going to Bonny Camp, Victoria Island. The soldiers said
Sunday wasn’t with them. When the OC SARS went to meet Owoseni, to
intimate him of the missing inspector, Owoseni demanded to know the
person that deployed Sunday and his men on the illegal duty.
Determined to find Sunday, sources said that the OC SARS approached
the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team
(IRT), headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari. It was
alleged that through the efforts of the IRT operatives, Sunday’s phone
was tracked and some of his alleged killers arrested.
The suspects took police to where Sunday’s rifle was buried. A police source said:
“Police investigation also led to the arrest of the traditional ruler.
The traditional ruler denied knowing anything about the disappearance of
Sunday.
He was invited to the police command; but rather than honour
police invitation, he ran to Police Force Headquarters, Abuja. He was
told at Abuja to go back to Lagos and respondfirst to police
invitation.”
The source continued: “Balogun, who led the operation in which
Sunday was kidnapped is on the run. But his second in command, Arokin,
has been arrested. Arokin confessed that Sunday was buried alive.
He took police to the shallow grave at Ibeju Lekki. Police
brought pathologists from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital
(LASUTH), to exhume Sunday’s corpse. “One of the pathologists, when he
saw Sunday’s skeleton, said that it looked as if he was buried with his
hands tied behind.
It was at that point that Arokin confessed that Sunday was
buried alive. He disclosed that after beating and disarming Sunday, he
and his colleagues waited for five days for policemen to come for him,
but nobody did.
In those five days, they didn’t give him food. He said that
when police didn’t come searching for Sunday; the traditional ruler
instructed them to go and bury the inspector alive. The traditional
ruler said that nothing would happen. Sunday was buried alive.”
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