Drunk Police officer gun down football fan in Lagos
Residents of Toriola Street in the Bariga area of Lagos State have accused an alleged drunken policeman of shooting a man, simply identified as Sefiu, dead during a football match.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the incident occurred around 6pm on Sunday during the final of a football competition organised by a candidate in the forthcoming National Assembly election for the House of Representatives for the Somolu Federal Constituency.
It was learnt that the policeman, who was one of the politician’s escorts to the venue, previously had an altercation with some of the spectators.
After getting drunk, he allegedly shot at one of them.
An eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the policeman fled the scene afterwards.
The eywitness said, “A politician hosted a football competition and he promised to give N60,000 to the winning team. The final match was on Sunday and it was played on the street. There was an altercation between one of the politician’s escorts and some guys, who came to watch the match.
“The match ended around 6pm. At that point, the policeman was already drunk and as soon as he sighted Sefiu, he tried attacking him. While Sefiu was trying to get away, the policeman shot at him and ran away.”
Another resident of the area, who simply identified himself as Wasiu, said Sefiu was immediately rushed to the hospital by some good Samaritans, adding that some policemen also tried to save him.
“Sefiu was shot in the side but he did not die immediately; some good Samaritans took him to a nearby hospital. Some policemen from the Pedro Police Station also came to help him, but he did not survive the gunshot,” he stated.
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However, when the state Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Chike Oti, was contacted, he said it was the hospital that contacted the police about a gunshot victim, adding that it was a case of suspected murder.
Oti stated, “Judging by the way the victim was dumped, we believe that it is a case of murder and investigation is ongoing. You cannot shoot somebody on the football field and not expect a riot. Nobody has come to report about anybody being shot at the police stations around that vicinity. It was the hospital that alerted us.
“What we learnt was that some young men came to the hospital and more or less dumped the victim in the hospital; but based on the police relationship with hospitals in Lagos State, the doctors alerted the Divisional Police Officer of the Pedro Police Station to the fact that they had a gunshot victim in the hospital.
“The DPO and his team raced to the hospital and urged the doctors to commence treatment, but the hospital informed the police that the expert, who could perform the delicate operation of extracting the bullet, was not available. Based on that, the DPO and his team, in trying to save his life, took him to the Gbagada General Hospital. On getting there, it was recommended that he should be transferred to LASUTH. By the time he was taken in at LASUTH, the doctors said he was already dead.
“We wanted to deposit his body in the morgue but they refused us, saying that they don’t usually accept a corpse without the relatives being present, because it would end up being an abandoned corpse. His corpse was then taken to the Yaba General Hospital’s morgue and deposited there pending the identification of the body by his relatives.”
Source: PUNCH
