The police in Ogun State have arrested four policemen, who on Sunday shot an operative of Global Concept Limited, one of the companies licensed by the Federal Government to protect pipelines in Sagamu area of the state.
The deceased, identified as Musibau Jimoh, was killed at Sagamu Junction by one of the policemen, who allegedly ordered him to release impounded vehicles and arrested suspects to them.
The arrested policemen were allegedly trying to rescue two pipeline vandals, who were arrested in Arepo area of the state by operatives of Donyx Global Concept Limited.
The policemen were as at Sunday evening still being detained at the command headquarters of the police at Iperu Road in Sagamu.
Angry residents in the area attempted to lynch the policemen, who shot sporadically to escape from the scene before they were later arrested.
The Nigerian Tribune gathered that it all started on Sunday when some operatives of the pipeline protection company intercepted some vandals in Arepo.
They were then transported to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company depot in Mosinmi, Sagamu where the policemen allegedly attempted to set them free.
The deceased and one other person were in one of the buses leading others to Sagamu when the policemen stopped the bus and demanded to know why the suspects and the buses should be taken to the NNPC office.
Temitope Odunsi, who was in the bus with Jimoh, said: “Jimoh brought out his identification card, which was given to us by our company and NNPC and was explaining to them when one of them snatched it from him and ordered him to stop talking.
“An argument ensued and one of them shot him at very close range and he died.
“We started noticing them at Sagamu interchange but because we could see that they were policemen, we continued with our journey.
“When we got to the junction that leads to Sagamu, they crossed our vehicle and pointed their riffles at us, asking us where we were going and we explained to them.
“They insisted that we must surrender the vandals and the product to them but because we don t know them, we tried to explain that we were going to hand them over to the police at NNPC depot as we have been doing in the past.”
The General Manager of Global Concept Limited, Femi Ekundayo, while speaking on the incident, described it as very “unfortunate and unprofessional of the policemen”.
Ekundayo called on the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, to ensure that a thorough investigation was conducted into the incident and the suspect should be made to face the full wrath of the law.
He said: “I don t know how to explain this.
“I cannot call this jealousy.
“They are certainly working for the pipeline vandals and that is not good for this country.
“We have always expressed our willingness to work with the police and other security agencies but this is not the way to cooperate with us to fight vandals.”
The spokesman of the state police command, Muyiwa Adejobi, could not be reached for comment.
Nigerian Tribune.
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