Posted by By Olalekan Adetayo on
Five persons, including four policemen, were feared killed on Tokunbo Street on Lagos Island in the early hours of Monday.
Five persons, including four policemen, were feared killed on Tokunbo Street on Lagos Island in the early hours of Monday.
Although the Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, claimed the four policemen 'only sustained gunshot injuries,' he confirmed that a male resident of the area was killed by a stray bullet.
The bloody incident, which was the third major robbery recorded in the metropolis in one week, came at a time the state government donated 10 Armoured Personnel Carriers, 1,000 AK47 rifles, 1,000 bullet-proof vests and helmets as well as two million .766mm ammunition to the state command.
Our correspondent learnt that the robbers stormed the area around midnight in a white bus which they had earlier snatched at gunpoint at Ogba, Lagos.
An eyewitness said that the robbers were making their way out of the area after their operation when they saw about six policemen on patrol and opened fire on them.
'They laid ambush for the policemen, abducted and killed four of them while the other two escaped with bullet wounds,' the source said.
He claimed that after killing the policemen, the robbers also stripped them and went away with their uniforms, a claim which Mba also faulted.
The source gave the name of the resident killed in the crossfire as Tolani. He was said to have been killed when the robbers were firing their way out of the scene.
Mba, a superintendent of police, noted that the policemen involved in the incident only sustained minor injuries and had already been treated and discharged at the Lagos Island General Hospital.
Mba added that the bus, marked BM370KSF, which the robbers used for the operation, was recovered and that a gas cylinder, expended and none expended ammunition as well as two military camouflage caps were found inside the bus.
Meanwhile, while donating the equipment to the command on Monday, the state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), said the state government had resolved to tackle the issue of security headlong because of the premium it placed on the safety of lives and property in the state.
He said that the joint military-police patrol approved for the state had become fully operational.
'This and more are clear signals to the criminals among us that the time to quit crime is now,' the governor said.
Receiving the equipment on behalf of the command, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, warned that it would no longer be business as usual for criminals.
Okiro said with the donation of the operational equipment, the state government had ensured police superior fire power over violent criminals.