‘How policeman killed my husband during official assignment,’ Widow tells Lagos panel

A widow, Mrs. Tolulope Opeyeniyi, on Friday, told the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry how a police officer attached to the Sabo Police Station in Lagos shot dead her husband in 2007.

The deceased, Olusegun Opeyemi, who was a staff of a telecommunication firm, Celtel, was allegedly shot dead by one Sgt. Jide Akintola on August 19, 2007.

The widow said Opeyemi who was on an official assignment was shot dead by the policeman around the University of Lagos area.

She said: “On that fateful day, he went on an official assignment to the University of Lagos. He told me he was going to UNILAG. He went in his official car. On his way back, he was stopped by the police. I don’t know if there was an argument, the policeman shot his vehicle’s tyre, forced the door of the car open, and shot him in the left side of his chest.

“The policeman then realised he was an innocent man; he was taken to the military hospital in Yaba but he gave up the ghost.”

According to her, the deceased’s corpse was evacuated by the police to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) morgue.

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She added that an autopsy conducted on the late Opeyemi on August 23, 2007, confirmed that he died of gunshot.

“To my surprise, they wrote on his body that he was an unknown person.

“The policeman, who shot my husband, was from Sabo Police Station. His name is Jide Akintola, Force No. 32405 and the DPO of Sabo Police Station at the time was Samuel Olukayode.”

The woman told the panel she was a nursing mother when her husband was killed two years after their marriage, adding that it had been difficult raising their two children alone.

When the police counsel, Cyril Ejiofor, asked the widow what evidence she had that a policeman killed her husband, she added: “The day the police shot my husband, fine I was not there, but that day was a terrible day, people wanted to burn the police station.”

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