Posted by By CHIDI NNADI and TOYOSI OGUNSEYE on
One week after an accountant with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Mr. Olalekun Nosiru Oluwalose, was murdered in the premises of a church over land dispute, the police have arrested the prime suspect.
One week after an accountant with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Mr. Olalekun Nosiru Oluwalose, was murdered in the premises of a church over land dispute, the police have arrested the prime suspect.
The suspect, whose name was given as Ola, allegedly ordered the attack of the banker, who was clubbed to death.
The assassination of the 36-year-old banker and father of three is now a subject of controversy among three parties involved in a land dispute at Amazing Grace Estate, Anthony Village and the Anthony Police Station where the matter was first reported.
The three parties are the family of Delfino Anthonio Da Meranda Ogunbode Eleye, the family of the late Chief Emmanuel Oyedele Ashamu and a group of tenants under the aegis of Land Owners Association of Amazing Grace Estate, Anthony Village, who bought plots from the Ashamu family together with the deceased Oluwalose.
According to an eyewitness, one Akin, an engineer, working for the tenants, said he got to the estate early that morning and noticed that some workers from the Delfino Anthonio side were already at site, excavating and pulling down fences. He told Daily Sun that the workers were led by Mr. Olafinihan Olawunmi, an agent to Mr. Festus Jacob of Jacob Festus Nigeria Company Limited, Ketu, Lagos, who is also believed to be an estate agent to the Delfino Anthonio family.
The engineer said on sighting the workers he decided to alert the deceased, which made him to come to the site at about 7.30 a.m., dressed in suit as he was already set for work.
Akin said when the deceased arrived at the site, Ola, who the tenants regarded as the commander of his group, ordered his boys to chase him out of the site.
"Immediately, the boys started pushing him out, manhandling him and one of them hit him on the buttocks with a shovel. After they had pushed him to something like one pole, Ola brought out his handset and made a call and thereafter asked his boys to call back the deceased," the site engineer said.
But he said the deceased ran away to call two policemen from the Anthony Police Station, who accompanied him to the site where Ola had "mobilised more people" and they attacked the policemen together with the deceased, making Oluwalose to flee into the Aladura Church.
He disclosed that Ola and his boys gave him a hot chase as he ran into the church and clubbed him down with dangerous implements, killing him on the spot.
When contacted, the solicitors to the Delfino Anthonio Da Meranda family, Abel O. Osuji and Associates showed Daily Sun a petition written to the Deputy Commissioner of Police by Olafinihan (Ola) Olawunmi, dated June 16, 2005 in which he identified himself as the Chief Security Officer to the family of Delfino Anthonio employed to take care of all their sites to ward off trespassers.
Similarly, the solicitor to the Delfino Anthonio family, in a separate petition to the Commissioner of Police, State Police Command, Ikeja dated June 17, 2005 said: "Our client went there Wednesday, June 15, 2005 and met men working on the site and they were confronted. They immediately went away and called police. On the arrival of the police form (sic) Anthony Police Station they declared that our client agent/workers have killed somebody.
"The police rough handled and tear gassed them. Our client demanded to see the dead body all to no avail. That our client quickly understood that it was a set-up and they ran away and proceeded to alert their employers and narrated everything that happened," the solicitor said.
The counsel added that his client later sought audience with the Deputy Commissioner of Police who advised that they see the DPO, "who told our client that the dead body was lying at the site."
For the tenants of Amazing Grace Estate, these are mere confusion created by their opponents to cover up the murder of their colleague.
When Daily Sun on Monday, June 20, visited the Church of the Lord (Aladura), members of the church who pleaded anonymity confirmed that a man was chased into the church from a nearby estate site and clubbed to death by a group of people with construction implements and other dangerous weapons on June 15.
When Daily Sun also visited the Anthony Village Police Station, the officers on duty said the case had been transferred to the Panti Police Station, denying that any of their officers was beaten at the site.