The Lagos Police Command has denied an alleged cover up in the murder of David Imoh, a sound engineer who was lynched by commercial motorcyclists over N100 change in front of Beer Barn in Lekki area of Lagos on May 12.
In a viral article on social media, an alleged imposter of the State Security Services (SSS) identified as Adio Oluwole Bashir, claimed that the police changed the arrested suspects and paid N100,000 to innocent persons to admit to the crime.
The purported SSS officer claimed that the secret police arrested 11 suspects and handed them to the police, but that the police paraded six different people as suspects.
“I was the team leader of undercover agents detailed to arrest killers of David, who was clubbed and later burnt to death obviously by Okada riders of Fulani and Hausa extraction… I now understand these fake suspects have been given 100k each to confess to the crime while two of them are innocents who were picked on the streets,” the writer alleged.
However, a statement issued on Monday by the police spokesperson in Lagos, Benjamin Hundeyin, said the write-up is “nothing but a cunningly-crafted work of fiction ill-intended by some unpatriotic persons and war mongers to cause disaffection, and possibly ethnic war, amongst Nigerians.”
He said the purported SSS officer was unknown to the state security. “The State Director of DSS in Lagos State confirmed to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police that the alleged officer was unknown to them.”
Mr Hundeyin said that the police in Maroko division arrested the suspects at the crime scene, contrary to the claim that they were handed to the police by the SSS
“It is therefore ridiculous, frivolous and laughable that the suspects were allegedly paid a miserly One Hundred Thousand Naira each to admit and take the fall for murder,” Mr Hundeyin said.
He said seven suspects have been arrested in connection to the murder case while investigation on the incident remains ongoing.
“Further investigation by the State Criminal Investigation Department led to the arrest of two other suspects. All six suspects were paraded before the press by the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, CP Abiodun Alabi, fdc, mnim, psc on May 20, 2022.
“A seventh suspect, Usman Abubakar, aged 22 (not the mastermind), who literally poured petrol on the victim, was eventually arrested the next day. This brings the total number of arrested suspects to seven,” Mr Hundeyin said.