Police deny media access to Bayo Ohu’s suspected killers
The Lagos State
Police Command refused the media access to the suspected killers of
Bayo Ohu, the Guardian newspaper journalist who was murdered in his
residence in Odukoya Estate, Akowonjo, Egbeda, Lagos, on September 20,
2009.
Unlike other
parades where suspects are given the opportunity to give their own
account of an incident, the Lagos State Police Command on March 15,
2010, selected only the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and The
Guardian Newspaper to be present at the parade of the three male
suspects.
The Police
identified them as Ganiu Suleman, 28, Idris Balogun, 26 and Dada Yemi
Adesanya, 23, who according to the Police, fired “the shots that sent
Bayo Ohu to his early grave.”
After the parade,
which was held at the Command in Ikeja, the Police spokesman, Frank
Mba, released a press release to other media houses, stating that their
investigation had been “meticulous, painstaking and discreet”.
He said the Police owed no one any explanation for its decision to exclude other media.
“We purposely did
not invite the media because Mr. Ohu’s case was a sensitive one. NTA
was invited because they are a federal government agency, and they are
like the grand-father of the media. And we invited Guardian out of
respect being that Mr. Ohu was their staff. We believe the two of them
adequately represent the print and broadcast media,” Mr. Mba said.
Amongst details
contained in the release, the Police claimed that out of 11 suspects
initially arrested, the three suspects paraded were “directly
implicated” in Mr. Ohu’s murder.
“After a meticulous
screening, only three of the suspects were implicated in the incident
that led to the death of Bayo Ohu. Police findings indicated that the
trio belong to a six-man deadly armed robbery gang that terrorised
parts of Lagos at the time,” the release read.
According to the
Police, on the day of Mr. Ohu’s murder, the trio, with other members of
the gang still at large, had embarked on “random robbery operations”
within Egbeda-Akonwonjo in a Honda Bull Dog Saloon Car, with
registration number LB 876 AAA . The gang later snatched a Toyota Camry
car, and after subsequent operations, they saw the gate to Mr. Ohu’s
residence open and struck.
“Thereafter, they
commenced their devilish operation, gaining entrance into the
deceased’s apartment through the kitchen door which was already open.
The deceased, Bayo Ohu, was said to have struggled with one of the
armed robbers, in the erroneous belief that it was only one of them
that was armed. His audacity was said to have infuriated the robbers
who wasted no time in shooting at him severally,” it read.
It was Mr. Ohu’s
daughter, Omolara Ohu, who on her return from fetching water at about
7am, discovered her father lying in a pool of blood. In her report to
the police, she mentioned seeing a white saloon car parked in front
their residence and four men wearing long robes and skull caps.
She said that it
was after the gun shots were fired that the men left the compound.
Later, she discovered the assailants left with the deceased’s Toshiba
laptop and two mobile telephone handsets. The police then used the call
logs of the phone numbers to trace and catch the suspects.
The tracking led to the arrest of one Rukayat Adeola, whose GSM number had been called with Mr. Ohu’s handset.
She later led the
police to two other suspects, Ismaila Adebisi and Victor Omogbehin, who
the police say confessed to having received stolen property including a
Nokia N97 handset having the same code number as that of Mr. Ohu’s.
“The Nokia N97
mobile phone and Toshiba laptop stolen from the deceased were sold by
the armed robbery gang to a notorious receiver of stolen property in
Lagos Island for the sum of N30,000. Both the Nokia phone and the
laptop have been recovered by investigators,” the police statement read.
The police said the three gang members will soon be taken to court
on charges of Conspiracy, Armed Robbery and Murder; while Mr. Omogbehin
and Mr. Adebisi will be charged for receiving stolen property, which
contravenes the Fire Arms Act.
