Posted by By CHRISTOPHER OJI, JULIANA FRANCIS and IHEACHI NWOKE on
The police in Lagos have started compiling fresh charges against the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr Fredrick Fasehun, following the exhumation of the body of a police Corporal, Onainor Onyerima, alleged to have been killed by the militant group. Already, no fewer than 18 people are in custody in connection with the Corporal's murder, while five others have been declared wanted.
The police in Lagos have started compiling fresh charges against the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr Fredrick Fasehun, following the exhumation of the body of a police Corporal, Onainor Onyerima, alleged to have been killed by the militant group. Already, no fewer than 18 people are in custody in connection with the Corporal's murder, while five others have been declared wanted.
Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba, Mr Olayinka Balogun, who briefed newsmen in his office Thursday, said: 'We now have enough evidence and concrete one to nail him (Fasehun). We are compiling fresh charges against him as OPC men who witnessed the killing showed us the grave where he was buried."
Corporal Onyerima was abducted on July 29, this year by OPC members, while on a mission, along with two other policemen, to rescue two men whose wives had complained to the police that their husbands were held hostage by the group. On arrival at the scene, the OPC monitoring unit allegedly captured the policemen, dealt machete blows on two and shot Onyerima. The two macheted cops escaped, while Onyerima was killed.
Already, Dr Fasehun and National Coordinator of OPC, Ganiyu Adams, are in police custody facing court charges over the killing of five commercial vehicle operators during a clash between OPC and members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Balogun, who took journalists to Ayobo, a Lagos suburb where the Corporal's corpse was exhumed Thursday, said Fasehun was the one who personally returned the rifles seized by the OPC men from the policemen to the SCID, Panti.
'You journalists have seen for yourselves that the Corporal was killed and buried by OPC men," Balogun said.
According to the Police Commissioner, the suspects, who witnessed the killing, confessed that the corporal was killed, adding, 'they confessed that they shot him with the gun provided by Fasehun, took him to his hotel (Fasehun's Century Hotel), they detained him (corporal) for seven days before he was finally killed. He was taken to Ayobo cemetery where he was buried. The cemetery attendant has told us that really, the policeman was actually killed by OPC men."
Balogun said during the raid on Century Hotel the police allegedly found the identity card of a missing police Inspector, adding, 'Fasehun will also explain all that he knows about the missing policeman. We are going to dig deep into the matter and no stone will be left unturned to unravel the mystery behind the sudden disappearance of the Inspector. The police commissioner, who lamented the unnecessary killings, said 'these were policemen who were doing their constitutional duties. They went to rescue people in OPC enclave and two of them were shot while the Corporal was abducted and later killed."
Speaking with Daily Sun, an OPC member, Lasisi Olanrewaju, who took the police to the spot where the Corporal's corpse was exhumed, said he was not there when the policeman was killed but that the OPC commandant of Lion Zone, Ayobo, one Haruna, told him that it was one Kennedy who fired the shot that killed policeman.
Olarenwaju said one undertaker working with the Ayobo Local Government Area, Sufi Adisa, was invited to bury the cop.
On his part, the undertaker, Adisa, told Daily Sun that when he was invited by the OPC men around 8 o'clock in the night, he told them that it was unusual to bury the dead at night, adding, 'even when I requested for the parents and relatives of the deceased, the OPC men brought out guns and threatened to kill me and wipe out my family if I contacted the police."