Photo: Five teenagers arraigned for murder of ex-Naval officer in Ogun State

Ogun Police Command on Thursday, July 6, arraigned five suspected killers of ex-Naval officer, Chief Moses Akanni Famuyiwa, before a Magistrate’s Court in Ifo, Ogun State.

The suspects namely Dare Abiodun (19), Femi Ayinla (17), Aliami Akinlotan (18), Jamiu Akewe (19), and Gbenga Ojo (20); were arraigned on a three-count charge of felony, armed robbery, and murder.

Famuyiwa, who was until his death, the chief Executive Officer of MAF 44 Gardens and Event Centre, was killed by the suspects and others at large on June 14, 2017. 

They conspired to rob the 73-year-old deceased of the sum of N500,000.00 in his apartment in Arigbajo and he was in the process stabbed to death.

When the case came up yesterday before the presiding Magistrate, Miss S. Titi Bello, after the charge was read, the IPO, Inspector Nike Oyinlola told the court that the main mastermind of the act, Dare Abiodun, had exonerated the four other suspects, claiming that his cohorts were at large.

During a cross-examination, Dare Abiodun said Femi Ayinla, Aliami Akinlotan and Jamiu Akewe were his friends but were not part of the robbery operation. He added that when the police thoroughly tortured him with gunshot wound on his ankle and that was when he took the police to his friends’ houses, where they were apprehended.

He noted that he had not met Gbenga Ojo before but was forced to point at him so that the police would set him free. Bello, however, lashed out at the police for still keeping Gbenga Ojo, who the suspect said he did not know me.

“If your investigation did not send him to prison, don’t send him there. There is still remedy at this stage. It is wrong to send an innocent person to prison. How would you exonerate a suspect and still arraign him in court? If he is taken to prison, nobody would remember him, you don’t have any case against this man.”

In their defence, the prosecutor, Sergeant Olumide Awoleke, who also buttressed Dare Abiodun’s confession said if the police had released those exonerated, the family would not have believed that they were not bribed.

He craved the indulgence of the court to use its discretion to release the innocent, which the presiding magistrate also threw to the deceased’s family, by giving them a few minutes break to decide.On resuming from the break, she adjourned the case to November 3, 2017.

Source: Guardian