According to Punch, motorcycle drivers on Thursday shut down the Ijegun Road in the Alimosho area of Lagos State, after a woman, Idongesit Ekpo, and her husband, Godwin, were shot by a team of policemen attached to the Isheri Osun Police Division.
While Idongesit died on the spot, Godwin was said to be in a critical condition at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, where he was taken for treatment.
Punch Metro learnt that the couple was returning from a church programme on Wednesday in a tricycle belonging to the family.
Punch correspondents were told that Godwin met a police checkpoint at Obalagbe bus stop, where some other tricycle drivers were being reportedly extorted by an eight-man police team.
He was said to have been flagged down by one of the policemen, but as he sped past, one of the officers shattered his windscreen with a baton.
Punch reports that a police corporal, identified as Aremu Musesiu, was said to have opened fire on the tricycle.
It was learnt that the bullet pierced through the tricycle back side and hit Idongesit, who was breastfeeding a three-month-old baby.
Her husband, Godwin, who looked back when the shot was fired, was said to have also been hit in the neck.
The policemen were said to have hurriedly taken money from the tricycle drivers they had earlier detained, before fleeing the scene.
Punch further reports that tricycle drivers in the community trooped out on Thursday to protest the death and demanded justice for the victims.
The protesters held placards, some of which read, ‘Isheri Police, your generation will suffer,’ ‘Stop killing us,’ among others.
The protest train went to the Isheri Osun Police Station, where they met a team of armed policemen in more than six vans. An Armoured Personnel Carrier was also mounted on the road to the station.
The Financial Secretary of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Lagos State branch, Chinanzor Ifechiga, was brutalised and her telephone seized by the Divisional Police Officer.
Ifechiga, who was accused of filming the protest and taking pictures, was manhandled by eight policemen, who struggled to take the phone from her on the order of the DPO. (The Punch)
The kind of occurrences the government MUST curb rigorously. Operating an illegal checkpoint by army or police and other law enforcement apparatuses must be sanctioned maximally since it seems that the law keepers are the same law breakers, much more than area boys or even armed robbers or kidnappers.
What this recent incident portrays is that the public is not safe from extra-judicial killing, with blatant breach of law and order to boot.
The entire responsibility police station must be brought to book because this may not be a ‘one-off’ occurrence. If it was not a regular practice the DPO wouldn’t further exacerbate the poor conduct of his/her team by brutalising protesters against the unfortunate premeditated killing of an innocent mother. What happens to the family now is beyond comprehension. If ever the culprits are let off through any mitigation, then Nigeria has yet to prove itself as a developing nation in the realm of modernity.