Matilda Omonaiye/
The Lagos State Police Commissioner, Mr. Zubairu Muazu, has ordered the immediate arrest of five policemen who carried out the summary execution of two unarmed suspected phone thieves in broad daylight in Lagos yesterday.
NewsmakersNG learnt that the officers who were initially mistaken for operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) were policemen attached to the anti-robbery section of the Iba police division.
The policemen had reportedly claimed in their report the murdered suspects engaged them in a gun battle in order to evade arrest. Their lie was however exposed by a video of the incident which has gone viral.
See part of the video below:
The police commissioner consequently ordered their arrest.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, confirmed the development and said that investigation had already commenced into the incident.
The video of the incident which reportedly happened in Igando area shows two of the suspects handcuffed to each other as an officer approaches with a third suspect.
Then there is a sudden gunshot.
The third suspect is shown in a yellow minibus. He is handcuffed as he reels in pain.
Then the policemen, who keep threatening to kill the suspects, order them out of the bus.
One of the policemen in the vehicle with the suspects is seen pushing one of them to the cops, who have taken firing squad positions.
“Leave am make I kill am,” one of the policemen says.
“Kunle, commot there make dem kill the idiot,” another cop says.
Two gunshots follow.
“God punish you! We no dey waste time,” one of the policemen says.
The man who recorded the video claims his friend was a victim of the suspects.
According to him, the suspects usually operated on Jiji, an online sales platform.
He says they lured their victims by promising to buy advertised phones at good prices. Afterwards, he says, the men would collect the phones at gunpoint.
He says, “They post on Jiji that they buy phones. Then they will call you and price your phone at high price.”
The man alleges that the suspects collected N450,000 from him at gunpoint after they had priced his phone highly.
“After calling you, they will use gun to collect your phone. This happened at Igando.
“So, they collected my friend’s phone. My friend then changed his number on Jiji and posted another phone for sale.
“They called him again and he decided to go there with anti-robbery operatives to arrest them so that he could get his phone back.
“Anti-robbery got there, caught them and shot them.”
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