SahararaReporters correspondents visited the surgical emergency ward of LASUTH on Monday as well as Tuesday morning and were repeatedly told the officer had been smuggled out of the ward by police authorities on Monday.
The family of the late Oloruniran Ajani, who was crushed to death in a wild roadside raid by policemen in Lagos last week, this morning arrived at the morgue to pick up his body for burial in his hometown of Abeokuta, Ogun State.
He and the officer who allegedly assaulted him had been taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) for treatment, but Mr. Ajani did not survive his injuries.
SahararaReporters correspondents visited the surgical emergency ward of LASUTH on Monday as well as Tuesday morning and were repeatedly told the officer had been smuggled out of the ward by police authorities on Monday.
The police officer, who has been identified by our correspondent as Amosun Oluwafemi, was reportedly given a beating by an angry mob after he pushed his victim into a drainage.
A source at the hospital said it was not possible for him to have qualified to be discharged, speculating that he must have been smuggled out by his colleagues.
Family members who spoke with our correspondent at the morgue this morning said no single person from the Police Force had spoken with them since the incident took place last Wednesday. Instead, they said, Mr. Oluwafemi had lied on the hospital bed on October 27 and claimed that the late Mr. Ajani was among those who had attacked him.
“The officer at the time did not know that a video capture of the scene was already available, before attempting to change the story on the hospital bed,” the family source said.
Mr. Oluwafemi and his colleagues had reportedly thrown the victim into the ditch in an effort to halt an LT commercial bus at the airport bus stop, allegedly for a bribe the driver was evading.
Mr. Ajani, who had worked in the LASUTH Mechanical Engineering department, was described by his two daughters as a “poor man."
“I asked him to help me with some money, and he promised his best for me on the day,” one of them said. She explained that he had obtained the money and was only on his way home when he was killed in the tragic police raid.
“We still saw the money in his pocket when we met him at the hospital,” she disclosed.
No statement has been made by the police since the incident, but a hospital source said they were trying hard to sweep the story under the carpet and ignore the victim’s family.
“The Lagos Police PRO, Dolapo Badmus, has been severally tagged in that video on social media, but she has kept mute and pretended not to see anything,” the source said.
Mr. Ajani is survived by his wife and five children.
