The Lagos state Police Command on Monday denied an alleged cover up in the case of late David Imoh, a sound engineer who was killed and burnt by a mob of commercial bike riders in the Lekki area of the state on May 12, 2022.
A post, circulating on social media, and purportedly made by a faceless officer of the Department of State Security (DSS) identified as Adio Oluwole Bashir, alleged that the Police changed the suspects arrested and handed over to it by the DSS, in a cover-up attempt.
The unknown DSS officer claimed that the service arrested 11 suspects, all of whom were northerners, and handed them to the Police, but that the police paraded different persons as suspects.
In a statement, the Police Public Relations Officer in Lagos, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, described the write-up as “nothing but a cunningly-crafted work of fiction ill-intended by some unpatriotic persons and war mongers to cause disaffection, and possibly ethnic war, amongst Nigerians.”
Hundeyin explained that the Police arrested the suspects at the crime scene, contrary to the claim in the faceless write-up that they were handed to the Police by the DSS.
The statement read in part, “The Command wishes to debunk this write-up as The Lagos State Police Command again confirms that the Divisional Police Officer, Maroko Division arrived at the active crime scene, promptly arrested four suspects and rescued the other two persons under attack. The numerous observers of the arrests, some of whom made videos, can attest to this.
“It is therefore ridiculous, frivolous and laughable that the suspects were allegedly paid a miserly One Hundred Thousand Naira each to admit and take the fall for murder.
“Further investigation by the State Criminal Investigation Department led to the arrest of two other suspects. All six suspects were paraded before the press by the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, CP Abiodun Alabi, fdc, mnim, psc on May 20, 2022. A seventh suspect, Usman Abubakar, aged 22 (not the mastermind), who literally poured petrol on the victim, was eventually arrested the next day. This brings the total number of arrested suspects to seven.”
Hundeyin added that the State Director of DSS in Lagos denied any knowledge of the faceless officer.
“Furthermore, not only has the State Director of DSS in Lagos State confirmed to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police that the alleged officer was unknown to them, he equally confirmed that the DSS neither arrested nor handed over any suspect to the police.
“CP Alabi therefore urges Nigerians to disregard the write-up as a mischievous attempt by fifth columnists to cause trouble within the country,” the statement reads further.
