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We didn�t kill Agbeyegbe
� Police
By Sunny Igboanugo
Metro
Editor and
Femi
Ogbonnikan
Reporter,
Lagos
Lagos police authorities have
risen in valiant denial that one of their ranks admitted that Jerry
Agbeyegbe was gunned down by mobile policemen on October 12, thus stoking
another round of claims and counter claims over the death of the man
widely respected as the voice of aviation.
They reacted quickly on Monday
by scoffing at our report of same day in which a top officer had
reportedly acknowledged that Agbeyegbe was killed by policemen, albeit
�mistakenly� and that those responsible are to be
paraded.
In the report, Lagos State
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations) John Haruna was quoted as
saying that he was killed �by
mistake�, by mobile policemen and that the murderers, arrested last week,
would be paraded at a press conference this week by Police Commissioner
Israel Ajao.
Apparently rattled by the
story, the Lagos Command addressed a press conference on Monday to deny
it.
They claimed that Haruna never
made such disclosures. �Preliminary and final post mortem reports issued
by the pathologist in the family�s chosen hospital on late Agbeyegbe
disclosed that nine pellets consistent with dane gun was extracted from
the deceased�s body.
�It is unimaginative and
misrepresentation of facts to suit the writer�s figment of imagination.
The police do not have guns that use pellets. So it is unfortunate and
disheartening to present this case in this manner. For emphasis, the
police did not kill Jerry Agbeyegbe�, a statement signed by Ajao
said.
They denied that Haruna spoke
on the deployment of mobile policemen, as such matters are under the
personal directives of the Inspector General of Police (IG).
The statement added:
�Journalists, like patriotic Nigerians, are enjoined to exercise caution
on this issue and encourage the public to give the police useful
information as it is done all over the world.
�The command has always
enjoyed a healthy relationship with the media generally, in line with the
Inspector General of Police�s policy of inter-agency cooperation, and
misleading reports like this should not be allowed to mar that
relationship. We are partners in progress and we expect crime
correspondents to assist us and not to run us down�.
Amplifying this position, Ajao
told reporters at police headquarters in Ikeja that all the knots
surrounding the case would soon be untied, including personal disclosures
from the only witness at the scene of the incident.
�At the appropriate time all
that you are yearning for, you will hear it. When you talk too much,
particularly in the media, you prejudice a lot of things that are not
going to assist you in making a very good case�.
Regarding public doubts about
the existence of Juliet Okonkwo (the lady said to have been with the
deceased at his death), Ajao said she is not a plant. �I want to assure
you that Juliet Okonkwo is a human being, she is a Nigerian, she does
exist, she is alive � hale and hearty and she will talk to the whole world
to dispel all these rumours�.
This latest round of denial
heightens the drama which has surrounded the death of
Agbeyegbe.
He was felled by suspected
assassins at Alakpere along Oworonsoki expressway on October 12, an
incident the police quickly dismissed as a case of lone accident involving
a man who lived an easy
life.
This explanation, in which the
police paraded Okonkwo, an alleged harlot, who purportedly accompanied the
deceased on a binge the night before, was, however, spurned by the
Agbeyegbe family, friends and a sceptical public.
A few days later, when an
autopsy showed that he died of gunshot wounds, the police admitted that
much, but claimed that he was killed by a dane gun in what they said must
have been a result of a quarrel with street urchins with whom he had
dealings.
�See police statement on
page A11
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