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Three more foreign detectives have joined the search for the killers of the Lagos State Peoples Democratic Party aspirant, Chief Funsho Williams.....
Three more foreign detectives have joined the search for the killers of the Lagos State Peoples Democratic Party aspirant, Chief Funsho Williams.
Our correspondents learnt of this development a few hours before the investigation team led by Deputy Inspector General of Police, B, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo, invited all the gubernatorial aspirants on the platform of the PDP for another round of quizzing at the Force Criminal Investigation Department Annex, Alagbon.
Sources said that the three additional foreign detectives, who are Canadians, arrived the country on Monday.
It was learnt that one of the requests of the Canadian detectives was for an analysis of the eyes of Williams.
Despite the fact that the identities of the Canadian detectives could not be established as at press time on Wednesday, it was learnt that they said the analysis of Williams‘s eyes would reveal those he came in close contact with 48 hours before his death.
Though an ocular pathologist and optometrist at Enny Eye Care Clinic, Lagos, Dr. Eniola Ajayi, said that science had not developed to the extent of the eyes of a dead person being able to store images, a search on the Internet revealed that such scientific feats were possible.
The theory that the last images seen by a recently dead person remains recorded in the eyes (the retina, actually), gained the grounds among photochemists in the 1880s.
According to Andre Moenssens‘, the origin of legal photography, which was published in the January 1962 edition of Fingerprint and Identification magazine, one of the fathers of modern (colour) photography, Prof. Hermann Vogel, performed experiments along this line.
Moenssens, a lecturer at the Institute of Applied Science and associate editor of the magazine, however described this theory as "discredited."
In the article, Moenssens wrote on the report of a suit brought against an administrator of an estate in 1871.
He wrote that one of the counsel argued that images last seen by a recently dead person remains recorded in the retina.
The lawyer tried to buttress these claims with results of experiments carried out by Vogel.
He argued, "Every object seen with the natural eye is only seen because it is photographed on the retina.
"In life the impression is transitory; it is only when death is at hand that it remains permanently fixed on the retina. . . .
"Science has discovered that a perfect photograph of an object, reflected in the eye of one dying, remains fixed on the retina after death. (See recent experiments stated by Dr. Vogel in the May number, 1877 of the Philadelphia Photographic Journal.)
"Take the case of a murder committed on the highway: on the eye of the victim is fixed the perfect likeness of a human face.
". . . We submit that the eye of a dead man would furnish the best evidence that the accused was there when the deed was committed, for it would bear a fact, needing no effort of memory to preserve it. . . the handwriting of nature, preserved by nature‘s camera."
Though the case was struck out and there is no known application of the theory till date, a source insisted that there has been further development of the theory.
However, there is another application of a similar theory, which is close to it.
This is called eye tracking.
It involves the use of scientific techniques to derive information from the eye.
It is used to determine the direction from which attackers came or the direction from which they attacked a deceased victim.
But Ajayi said there was no such technological device to know what images the eye of a dead person saw 24 hours before his or her death.
She said even if there was any such device, it would not be able to see anything again in the eye of a dead person because the eye does not have any memory bank.
Ajayi said, "The eye is just a passage through which vision is perceived.
"Such visions are only transmitted through the eye to the brain by the help of some chemicals and neuro-transmitters to the brain.
"It is the brain that interprets such vision and not the eye."
She, however, admitted that some vital organs in the eye of a dead person could still be useful for somebody who is still alive.
But sources at the FCID said that the eye theory was practicable and this could have accounted for the fresh invitation to all gubernatorial aspirants on the platform of the PDP in Lagos State for another round of quizzing.
Among those that had arrived at the FCID Annex as at press time on Wednesday were the representative of the Lagos Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro; Mr. Owolabi Salis; Mr. Femi Carrena; Mr. Tokunbo Kamson; Dr. Adedeji Aganga-Williams; and Mr. Adedeji Doherty.
It was learnt that the invitation of the aspirants could also give the police the opportunity of taking their pictures.
A source also informed our correspondents that the aspirants were also invited based on the statement of one of the suspects that Williams, the chairman of the board of the National Maritime Authority until his death, complained about a threat to his life by some big wigs of the PDP.
It was learnt that Williams made the last of such complaints on June 24 in the Ikoyi, Lagos home of a bigwig of the party.
The politician was one of the earliest callers to the Williams's home after his murder.
Four directors of the NMA being detained on the issue were again quizzed on Wednesday.
The four of them were led out of their cells at exactly 3pm into the interrogation room.
Our correspondent learnt that 18 suspects are currently being held in connection with the case.
The interrogation took place just as information filtered in that an aide to Williams confessed receiving N5million from one of the suspects.
It was also learnt that highly placed persons now visit the suspects in the evening to avoid the prying eyes of journalists.
A source at the FCID told our correspondent that the bigwigs prefer visiting the suspects after 4pm when Onovo would have closed for the day.
Said the source, "You just come here in the evening, you will see what I mean.
"The first thing that will catch your attention is the kind of big cars that you will see parked everywhere.
"They are trying to run away from you guys (journalists)."
From the residence of the Williams‘s came reports on Wednesday that the widow of the slain politician, Hilda, lamented the death of her husband, saying that she had rested her case with God.
Hilda, who slumped on Tuesday during a special prayer session, was, however, active throughout Wednesday as she received scores of sympathisers who thronged the Williams‘s Dolphin Estate in Ikoyi.
She kept assuring religious fathers, top politicians and high ranking government officials who commiserated with her that she had put her trust in God who knows all things.
She left the house around 5.30pm.
All those that visited the Williams‘s residence prayed that God would expose those that killed the politician.
The Founder/presidential candidate of the National Action Council, Dr. Olapade Agoro, said the invitation of the metropolitan police into the investigations of the circumstances surrounding Williams‘s murder had exposed the inefficiencies of the Nigerian police.
Agoro said rather than raining curses on the killers of the late politician, President Olusegun Obasanjo should have told Nigerians why his government was unable to fish out those who had been killing notable Nigerians.
Dr. Ajoke Mohammed, widow of the late Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, told Hilda to take heart as her husband, even in death, remained a great hero and a winner.
Also, a former Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Alhaja Sinatu Ojikutu, prayed that the killers of Williams would not find peace until the long hand of the law caught up with them.
Others who visited the Williams‘s on Wednesday included Bashorun Doja Adewolu; Chairman of the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi and the agency‘s Director General, Dr. Ola Olatunji; former Minister of Information, Dr. Walter Ofonagoro; and Chief Yekini Adeojo.