New documents show how SSS, state prosecutor tore police probe of Oshiomhole’s aide’s murder apart.
At
least two suspects paraded by the police in last year’s killing of
Olaitan Oyerinde, the Principal Private Secretary to the Governor of Edo
State, Adams Oshiomhole, were staged; same for the weapons police
claimed were used for the crime. The two suspects had earlier been
arrested by the police for illegal possession of firearms on April 24,
2012, and were in custody of the Edo State Police on May 4, 2012, the
night the attack on Mr. Oyerinde occurred, reports outlining
multi-agency investigations into the crime have shown.
PREMIUM
TIMES obtained a document proffering legal advice from the office of the
Edo State Public Prosecutor, reminding the police of the presumed
status of those accused by the police of committing the murder. The
office of the Director of Public Prosecution, DPP, is tasked with
supervising the trial of suspects where culpability is established, and
offering legal counsel to facilitate diligent prosecution. It also
retains records of past and ongoing cases in the state. The DPP letter
The October 29, 2012 letter, served on the Deputy Inspector General,
DIG, of Police in charge of the murder investigations, Peter Gana,
advised the police that two of the four suspects listed for the crime-
Murtala Usman and Danjuma Musa- were due to have been in police cell,
alongside the weapons, on the date of the crime.
The
letter, signed by one Ade Irehovbude for the Director of Public
Prosecution in Edo State, dismissed as “incongruous” police claims that
the arrested suspects were truly behind Mr. Oyerinde’s killing. “Could a
weapon recovered and in possession of the police be confirmed by the
suspects to have been used for the commission of the offence,” the
office queried at a point in the letter, citing previous records. The
letter underlined the inconsistencies of the findings claimed by the
police in the murder probe, discrepancies that have triggered
allegations that police investigators have worked more to shield, than
expose the killers. Mr. Oshiomhole has been most vociferous in that
claim. “In my view, the police investigating team under the deputy
commissioner of police is purely engaged in acts of mischief in a futile
attempt to shield the real murderers,”
Mr. Oshiomhole said in a
statement in August. “It is now up to the police to prove otherwise, and
they are duty-bound to do so,” the governor added. The allegations have
found weight in the contradictions pointed in separate investigation by
the State Security Service, SSS, and concerns raised by the state
prosecutor’s office. PREMIUM TIMES has also exclusively obtained the
report detailing the SSS investigation of the case. While the police say
four persons took part in the operation, the SSS, in its report, names
three. Separate accounts Police account names Murtala Usman, Moses
Okoro, Auta Ali and Danjuma Musa as the assailants who breached Mr.
Oyerinde’s security that night, accessed his apartment, and shot him
thrice before stealing his personal effects. While Danjuma, a
23-year-old man from Kamba in Kebbi State, remained at the gate with a
bound guard, Auta Ali manned the bedroom window, and the other two
operated the interior of the building. It was Messrs. Ali and Usman who
fired at Mr. Oyerinde, the police claimed in its report. But quoting
past police records and investigation, the state prosecutor’s office,
said Messrs. Usman and Danjuma were due to have been in police custody.
“While
Danjuma Musa and Muritala Usman also confessed to the crime, we are
constrained to observe that the investigation report suggests clearly
that the said Danjuma Musa and Muritala had been in the custody of the
Edo state police command since 24/04/12, in respect of a case of
unlawful possession of cartridges before the suspects were taken over by
the FCID, interrogated and reportedly confessed to this incident that
took place on the 4th of May, 2012. This is evidently incongruous,” the
office said in the letter to DIG Gana. As with the state prosecutor’s
office, investigation by the SSS led elsewhere. None of the men
mentioned by the police was involved, the service said.
The
attackers were three, namely Mohammed Abdullahi, Raymond Origbo and Edeh
Chikezie. The service did not provide details of their locations during
the operation, but said the three men agreed Mr. Abdullahi was the man
who fired the shots that killed the governor’s former aide. Both
agencies admitted that their indictments on the suspects were achieved
not through forensic examinations, implying no fingerprint links were
established, but routine confessions. However, the links were
established through tracing the stolen phones from the buyers to the
sellers, they claimed. As with the police, the SSS adjudged the attack
as having involved robbery, yet the agencies arrested different sets of
suspected buyers of the stolen goods, more than a dozen men who
purportedly purchased the phones, Blackberrys and IPADs stolen from late
Mr. Oyerinde’s house.
In its report, the police said the
locally-made “cut to size single barrel gun with one cartridge”,
confirmed as having been used during the operation, was traced to Esigie
Police Station in Benin, and retrieved. In the letter, the prosecutor’s
office noted the same weapon had earlier been recovered by the police
station on April 24, 2012, less than two weeks before Mr. Oyerinde’s
death, and forwarded to Abuja by the Divisional Police Officer of the
station, through a July 18 letter. While the police spoke of an
assassination, the SSS said the operation was an armed robbery gone
awry. The suspected shooter claimed he fired not to kill Mr. Oyerinde,
but to scare him, and that they had chosen their target for the
operation from unwitting comments by Mr. Oyerinde’s guard who spoke
about his affluence, the SSS said.
SSS sees no friction Despite
the seeming friction, spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, said such insinuations
were media misrepresentations of the relationship between the two
agencies. Apart from the differences in the operational mandates of the
two agencies, the SSS does not get involved in assassination or robbery
cases, except where there are insinuations that they are being
masterminded by the government. “There is absolutely no conflict between
the roles of the police and the SSS. Whatever insinuations are mere
media misrepresentations,”
Mrs. Ogar said. Mrs. Ogar recalled that
the incident occurred at the peak of plans towards Edo elections, with
accusations and counter-accusations across the political parties. She
said the involvement of the agency was to investigate the allegations,
which was negatively impacting the integrity of the state; and when it
was established that it was “robbery gone awry”, the suspects were
promptly handed over to the police. Working through the case, arguably
one of Nigeria’s most embarrassing and intrigues-filled homicide cases
in years, and deciding on a believable version of how Mr. Oyerinde died
has proved daunting for a public that barely anticipated answers for the
crime nonetheless. Reps open probe This week, starting Wednesday, a
House of Representatives hearing could help sift the facts from
organised falsehood.
The House ad hoc committee is to review the
various reports from the police, the SSS, and the Edo State Public
Prosecutor’s office with accounts from the last two that implicitly
accused the police of lying and distorting the facts. The Inspector
General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, has consistently rejected
allegations of the force’s complicity in the murder, describing such
insinuations by Mr. Oshiomhole, last month, as “baseless”. But the
documents examined by PREMIUM TIMES shed light into how a supposedly
clear-cut crime, literally, became convoluted by untidy investigations
that left loose ends, and varied conclusions. Surprising suspect On the
night he was murdered, Mr. Oyerinde was sleeping in his sitting room.
After the gunmen successfully broke in, the former labour unionist
awoke, huddled with his wife in the bedroom, secured the door, and
prepared for the worst. When the shots rang out, he had no way of
escaping.
The police said one of the shots, somehow, came from
within the room, and another two that turned out fatal, from outside the
window. With the three strikes on target, Mr. Oyerinde slumped. It was
Auta Ali, who fired the fatal shots, police report states. The police
claimed the attack was sponsored by a Benin City-based rights activist
and campaigner, David Ugolor, a close friend of Mr. Oyerinde, who was
allegedly keen on ousting the former principal secretary to realise his
ambition to assume his position.
The report acknowledges Mr.
Ugolor and Mr. Oyerinde were together the previous night before the
attack, and that it was Mr. Ugolor, who was first reached by Mr.
Oyerinde’s wife, Funke, after her husband was shot. A surprising
suspect, Mr. Ugolor’s arrest and prolonged detention despite a court
order mandating his bail, helped fuel the distrust the police case was
oozing. The police said investigations showed Mr. Ugolor had paid N200,
000 of the total N20 million pledge he made to the attackers to rid of
Mr. Oyerinde. A key suspect, who allegedly coordinated the deadly raid,
Garba Maisamari, also secured a positive physical identification of the
purported sponsor for the police, the report states.
However, Mr.
Maisamari failure to provide further evidences supporting a supposed
knowledge of a business client, having no idea of Mr. Ugolor’s telephone
numbers, residences or car type, gave a lie to the report. Mr. Ugolor,
who is the Executive Director, African Network for Environment and
Economic Justice, ANEEJ, has denied the allegation. But the allegation
left even more room for suspicion against the police work. Despite
earlier claims of securing phone call logs proving contacts between Mr.
Ugolor and Mr. Oyerinde’s assailants, potentially the strongest of a
relevant evidence initially, the force has failed to produce the logs.
Separately,
Mr. Oshiomhole said he found it illogical that hired
assassins assured of N20 million would only accept N200, 000 in advance,
and for several months dating the attack, failed to extract their
balance. As with the governor, the Edo prosecutor’s office raised
similar concern of dismal evidences against Mr. Ugolor in the letter to
the DIG and asked for his release. It is not clear how the police
responded. Mr. Ugolor was later released and has also instituted charges
against the police over his illegal detention. Its now 10 months since
Mr. Oyerinde was killed. Unless the House clarifies the discrepancies in
the suspects and the trials, the true murderers of the deceased may
never be found.
Naij.com
Yesterday
a judge criticised the police and Crown Prosecution Service after it
emerged they had missed three chances to catch her attacker, David
Edgerton, 22, in the months leading up to the rape. Judge Merfyn Hughes
QC said the girl may have been spared had they apprehended or prosecuted
Edgerton, of Connah’s Quay, north Wales, for an earlier rape, an
attempted rape and an attack on a girl of ten.