Posted by By Jide Osokoya on
A clearing and forwarding agent, Alhaji Suraju Folarin Azeez, has narrated how a Senior Editor with ThisDay newspaper, Mr. Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, was killed on Sunday, at Dopemu, a sub-urban area of Lagos State, Nigeria.
A clearing and forwarding agent, Alhaji Suraju Folarin Azeez, has narrated how a Senior Editor with ThisDay newspaper, Mr. Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, was killed on Sunday, at Dopemu, a sub-urban area of Lagos State, Nigeria.
Paraded by the Lagos State Police Commissioner, Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo, to brief newsmen on how the incident happened, Folarin said he was the major victim of the robbers who escaped with his Murano S.U.V.
Narrating his story to the newsmen, the witness, who refused to be captured on both still and video cameras for what he described as 'Security reason', said he was returning from a party at Sagamu, Ogun State, in company of his wife, when they were stopped by the armed robbers.
His words; 'On Sunday, 17 August, I left Lagos for Sagamu for a party around 2p.m with my wife. I left Sagamu at 9p.m, and branched at my doctor's clinic at Mushin, because I was feeling feverish. I was treated and I immediately left for my home at Idimu.
'On my way home, I took Liasu Road, near Idimu. On getting to Kings filling station, I slowed down at the bad road in the area, only for a peugeot 504 salon car to cross me, and stopped me and ordered my wife and myself to come down. We obeyed.
'They removed our jewelries and money. After then, they ordered us back into the vehicle. It was around 10.30p.m. Five of them entered with us, sandwitching me and my wife, while one of them drove. They took Idimu-Egbeda Road to Akowonjo Road and then to the Dopemu bridge.
'On that road, they sighted one KIA jeep and one of them said, this is another fine car, let's go for it. When they moved closer and saw that it was KIA, they said it's not a good product. They wanted to climb the Dopemu bridge toward Agege, one of them said they should go down and take the express road toward Ikeja.
'That must have created a confusion for the man driving the KIA who thought they were going-up, as he innocently obstructed them and hit my jeep, with which they were escaping, at the back. In annoyance, they jumped down, shouting that this man had spoilt the jeep for them.
'When they got down, they knocked his side glass and he refused to open for them, the one by my wife's side carried his gun and shot into the air twice, but the man refused to wind down. One of them then said, 'we shall spoil this motor for you', and sprayed the jeep with bullets, one of which might have killed the man.
'On returning to the vehicle, the men started blaming themselves for killing the occupant of the KIA Jeep, consoling themselves later that the man's stubbornness killed him. 'After then, they took me and my wife around before they later dropped us along the abattoir road, Abule-Egbeda, and told us to lie face-down, before they zoomed off with my Murano Jeep, which I've not found till today.
'Luckily, we saw a danfo driver who was closing for the day, some few minutes to 1a.m, and we narrated our ordeal to him before he took us home, he refused to take us to the police station at that odd hour, expressing his fear against the police. 'The following morning, I went to Idimu police station to report the incident, and I found the KIA jeep there. I then told the police that the jeep was shot at by the robbers who snatched my car. It was there that I learnt that the owner had died.
'From Idimu, the case was transferred to the state CID, Panti. That's all I know about the matter,' Alhaji Suraju Azeez concluded.
Earlier in his address to newsmen, the Lagos police commissioner frowned at the allegation by some concerned friends of the slain journalist that he was murdered by the police. Fuming with rage, Akpoyibo said; 'If anybody says the police is responsible for the death of the journalist, I leave them in the hands of the Almighty to judge, because the facts are clear. And at this level of our development, in this 21st century, I think it is the most ridiculous thing for anybody in a civilised society to just wake-up and address the press and tell lies that the police did this or that, when he knew that the police never did it'.