Directorate Of Public Prosecutions Indicts Police Inspector Over Murder Of Lagos Chief
Fatai Jubril was in July 2023 allegedly murdered by another traditional leader, during a land dispute.
Inspector Dikko Usman of the Nigeria Police Force and some others have been indicted in the murder of Chief Fatai Jubril, the Baale of Lotu community in Ibeju-Lekki Local Government Area of Lagos State.
Fatai Jubril was in July 2023 allegedly murdered by another traditional leader, during a land dispute.
It was alleged that the Baale, led by some thugs numbering over 40, accosted the deceased and took him in handcuffs to the disputed land in Museyo, Epe.
The deceased chief was reportedly shot to death in the presence of his wife, Ejiro Jubril, and teenage daughter.
It was gathered that the thugs were accompanied by security operatives in mufti who handcuffed Jubril.
A family source told journalists that trouble started when Jubril resisted being handcuffed and he was beaten and subdued by the thugs accompanying some security men in mufti before taking him to the land in dispute.
Family members of Fatai Jubril in December 2023, appealed to the state government to intervene in the case.
The family lamented that there had been a standstill in the police investigation nearly five months after the Lagos chief was brutally murdered in the presence of his wife and teenage daughter.
However, Inspector Dikko Usman was indicted in the case on Tuesday by the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions, DPP’s advisory addressed to the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2 Command Headquarters, according to PUNCH.
It was learnt that the officer had been dismissed from the force and charged in court.
The advisory, signed by the DPP Deputy Director, Sunmonu Tunde, on behalf of the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, further stated that Dikko, along with Omotola Adeboyejo and Wasiu Agbaraojo, would be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder and murder.
The DPP, in its advisory, noted that the medical cause of the chief’s death certificate and the accounts provided by other eyewitnesses supported the cause of death of the deceased which attributed the death of the deceased to sporadic gunshots by one of the Mobile Policemen procured by Omotola Adeboyejo to the scene on July 15, 2023.”
Despite multiple eyewitness claims that the two Mobile Police officers hired by Adeboyejo fired the shots that killed the deceased, the DPP stated that the ballistic report linked Jubril’s death to shots fired from Usman’s rifle.
The report read in part, “Facts in the duplicate case file reveal that one Chief Fatai Jubril Asalu was shot at on July 15, 2023, at Museyo community, Ajah, and died as a result of the gunshot injuries to the head as indicated in the Medical Cause of Death Certificate dated August 23, 2023, issued by one Dr. O.O. Onayemi, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.
“As to which of the two Mobile Policemen fired the shots that killed the deceased, while conflicting eyewitness accounts indicate that both Dikko Usman and Nura Sanni, who were Mobile Policemen at the scene, fired gunshots, however, the ballistic report with Reference Number AR:4100/X/FSL/B.14/2023 dated October 5, 2023, on forensic examination of one expended casing (shell), two TO6 assorted riffles with Breach Nos. 07022939 and 07004676 with three magazines containing 78 lives of ammunition and extracted bullet fragments, both riffles reveal residue of burnt propellant, indicating they were fired sometime and their working mechanisms are complete.
“But Rifle No. 07022939, held by Sanni, displayed a malfunction of the extractor and ejector.”
