"They killed an inspector and buried him"

Months after Police Inspector Musa Sunday was murdered in Lagos, his alleged killers have finally revealed how he was killed and buried in a shallow grave in a forest in Lagos. The revelation of how late Inspector Sunday attached to the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad FSARS Lagos state command was beaten to his early death did not come to light easily as his alleged killers had taken oath not to reveal how he was murdered in cold blood.
However, due to the combined efforts from operatives attached to the FSARS Lagos Command led by the Officer in Charge ACP Umar Paiko and Operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team led by ACP Abba Kyari, four persons were arrested at Oshorokor community in Ibeju Lekki area of Lagos State where the late Inspector Sunday was deployed to by the Officer in Charge of FSARS Lagos Command to arrest suspected kidnappers police authorities said.
Narrating how police authorities learnt about the late Inspector Sunday’s death, ACP Paiko said: “I deployed Inspector Musa Sunday to lead a team to the Epe area of the state to arrest kidnappers. He was not on illegal duty. However, according to reports I got, he was patrolling the area with his team when a land dispute broke out in the area on November 29, 2016.
He and his team got a distress call as he was patrolling the area and they rushed to the scene of trouble to maintain law and order only for one of the warring factions to abduct him. We immediately made frantic efforts to rescue him as we learnt that he was taken to the Bonny Cantonment but the military said he was not with them. Strangely, Inspector Sunday had two weeks earlier rescued a member of the faction that abducted him over the same land dispute. We sent a team to comb the area but he was not found.
The IGP Intelligence Response Team was deployed to assist in finding him and after months of intelligence gathering, we tracked his phone number and got those that abducted him. We mounted pressure on them but they refused to confess because they had taken oath but they later confessed that he was murdered.
“We have four suspects in our custody over the killing,” speaking on how Inspector Sunday was abducted before he was murdered, a member of the community, Bidemi Amodemaja, said, “We were in our site at Lekki-Ebute dredging the land on November 29, 2016, when suddenly soldiers and a lot of people stormed our site with guns, cutlasses, charms and other dangerous weapons. They started beating us up.
“They said they were from the Oba and we were kidnappers. We tried to explain but they beat us up mercilessly and abducted our workers. My brother and I escaped to look for the missing workers but another set of people pounced on us and beat us up mercilessly. I escaped and went to look for help.
“That was when I saw the police patrol van. I called on them to come and rescue my brother. When they got to the scene, we saw my brother in an unconscious state and the police took him into the police van. Inspector Sunday came down from the van and tried to pacify the people but another group numbering more than 500 and armed to the teeth were approaching the police van. The two other policemen in the van called out to Inspector Sunday but he was nowhere.
“The driver tried searching for him but they did not see him. That was how they zoomed off because of the rampaging crowd approaching. That was the first and last time I saw Inspector Sunday.”
One of the suspects arrested by the police over Inspector Sunday’s murder, a certain Balogun, 51, while speaking at the state command Ikeja narrated how the late Inspector was killed.
He said: “I am a gate man at a primary school. I am from Oshoroko community in Ibeju Lekki. There was a land dispute between the Oba of Lekki and the Amodemaja family. I was there when the fighting started. I could not run because of my bad leg. The Police Inspector was beaten to death by youths in Oshorokor that came to fight against the Amodemaja family.
“He was abducted and beaten with sticks. One Jimoh was the one that took the police inspector’s gun. That day we had our Oro festival and we sent all the women inside the house. It was later in the night that we assigned four men, namely: Banino, Okeshikaro,Santana and Olorioko to bury him.
“They buried him in a forest in Oshoroko and after they buried him, they went to the village shrine and collected the sand in front to the shrine. They poured the sand in a bottle of gin and gave it to all of us to drink so that we will not reveal the secret of how Police Inspector Musa Sunday was murdered and buried in the forest. They said if anybody revealed the secret, the person would die.”
Another suspect, one Atoki, 64, said: “I am an elder in Oshoroko community.
“I went to buy drum from Epe with my son when the people from Amodemaja family caught me and beat me up mercilessly. They held my son and I ran to inform the police at Akodo Police Station. They came with me to arrest those that inflicted injury on me but the men right in the presence of the policemen beat me up and tore my clothes.
“They were bent on killing me but a police patrol team led by Inspector Sunday was patrolling the area and they rescued me and took me to hospital. When the land dispute started, I was not there but I learnt they killed an Inspector and buried him. I did not tell the police authorities because there was an oath not to reveal the secret. It was later I found out that it was the same Inspector that rescued me.”