By DTN STAFF -
Police 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. 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.
The policemen were 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.”
Daily Times
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