Police killed them –Relatives
No, they died of machete cuts –Police
It is buck passing galore between policemen and residents of Ijora-Badia in Lagos. Reason: Two friends had been shot down by the police. Whereas family and eyewitnesses laid the blame for the death of the youths on the doorsteps of law enforcement agents, the latter claimed the two victims were killed in a fierce fight that broke out during the event.
Last Saturday, some youths gathered at a get-together organised by a major hotelier at Ijora-Badia area of Lagos State. The party, scheduled to last until the following morning however ended on a sad note when two of the fun-seekers, Moses Ayenuro and Ikenna Michael, met their untimely death in circumstances still shrouded in secrecy.
Ayenuro, 21, whose girlfriend is carrying a seven-month-old pregnancy was an Assistant Manager at another hotel in the area, while Ikenna, 19, also worked as a steward in a bar in the neighbourhood. Saturday Mirror learnt that the organiser of the party, apparently for trying to avoid any untoward event, had approached the police station close by for security for invitees and their valuables.
It was gathered that eight armed policemen were detailed to the venue of the party as requested by organisers. Saturday Mirror also gathered that on that fateful Sunday, December 15, 2013, around 2:00a.m at the thick of the party, fighting broke out among some people. This necessitated the law enforcement agents around to mobilise to restore normalcy to the party.
An elder sister of one of the deceased fun-seekers, Moses Ayenuro, Olufunmilayo, who was also at the party and sewed the uniform on the behest of organisers of the party, witnessed the circumstances leading to her brother’s death. Olufunmilayo claimed that while fighting started among some men at the party, chairs and tables were hauled by the feuding men. This halted the music at the occasion. She claimed that this made the policemen providing security for the party to start shooting sporadically into the air.
“When fighting broke out around 2:00a.m, everybody at the party started to leave, but the policemen outside the venue of the party started shooting into the air maybe to scare people and douse tension there.
But while they were shooting sporadically and people were running for dear lives, another boy called Ikhennea “He was shot on both legs. Since my brother and the boy that was shot are friends in the same community, Moses called the attention of the police to the boy wriggling in the pool of his own blood.
Also, some of the policemen that came to provide security there were known to some people in the area because their station is nearby. “I think it was because of that that Moses held one of them by his trousers, while trying to run away after learning that one person had been hit. But other policemen there were furious that Moses was asking them to carry the boy that had been hit.
So, they all gathered round him (Moses) and dragged him to their station, claiming that he was one of the people fighting and trying to engage the police,” Olufunmilayo said.
Olufunmilayo claimed she followed the law enforcement agents and witnessed how they dragged her brother on the ground adding that while Moses was being dragged on the ground to the station, she enquired from the law enforcement agents what his offence was and that she was told that he (Moses) was confrontational to them after they fired the shots to disperse the surging crowd. Olufunmilayo continued, “I begged them that my brother was not a trouble maker and that he just wanted them to attend to the boy that was shot.
But while I tried to hold one of them, some of them pushed me aside and I fell into the gutter and remained unconscious because I did not know what happened to me afterwards.” She said that moments after she was pushed into the gutter, she was awakened by a gunshot towards the police station and when she got up but it was still dark.
She said that she and some sympathisers hung around the station until it was morning. Olufunmilayo told journalists that in the morning they were told that three people had been rushed to the hospital.
She explained that when they got to General Hospital on Lagos Island, they saw one Muyiwa Banji – who sustained injuries on his head and the shot Ikenna. When asked where Moses was, Olufunmilayo said that they were told that her younger brother was not brought there.
However, she was later informed by a source that Moses might have been the one shot while he refused to enter the station with the law enforcement agents.
Olufunmilayo and other sympathisers then headed for the IDH, Yaba where they reportedly found Moses’ corpse. She claimed that when they went back to the police station to demand why Moses was killed, they were told by the police that her brother died as a result of machete cut he had during the fight, a claim she denied. She also said when they contacted the hospital where her brother was kept for his body, the hospital demanded for a Coroner Sheet from the police to examine it for the cause of death.
Olufunmuilayo also claimed that when they went back to the station, the police did not give them the said document for the doctors to carry out test on the corpse.
Muyiwa Banji was discharged from the General Hospital a day after the incident, but Ikenna could not make it as the gunshot wound on his leg got out of hand. He died two days after the incident.
Ikena’s father, who spoke with reporters, claimed that his son was not a trouble maker but went to the party because he was invited. “I think the government should probe into this dastardly act. How could a boy that left my care for a party die hours after from gunshots from the police?” he asked.
An eyewitness, who does not want his name in prints, told Saturday Mirror that the law enforcement agents deployed to the hotel to provide security were dead drunk by the time fighting broke out.
“I believe the men were dead drunk because throughout the night, they were smoking and drinking gin and beer where they were stationed outside the party venue.
It was the gun shots that woke me from my house,” he said. A police source, who does not want his name to be mentioned, told Saturday Mirror that the two men were among those causing mayhem at the party and that they had already sustained injuries inflicted on them before policemen rushed to the scene of the fight.
However, since Moses death, it was reported that law enforcements agents from the police station had been terrorising residents of the area, whom they suspected could testify against them.
Only yesterday, a female cousin of Moses, Shaki Benjamin, carrying an eight month old pregnancy, was hit by policemen with the boot of a rifle on her chest after forcing his way into the pregnant woman’s room.
The gun but hit on the young woman and immediately sent her to the clinic where she was reported to be in premature labour throughout yesterday.
Neither the Divisional Police Officer nor Lagos State Police Command spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, could be reached for their reactions to the incident, but a source said that investigation has commenced into the case.
Source: National Mirror
