22nd August, 2023
Senator Solomon Adeola, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, has claimed that soldiers of the Nigeria Army operating checkpoints around the Ikeja axis of Lagos State are responsible for the death of his senior aide, Mr. Adeniyi Oluwatosin Sanni, in the early hours of Saturday, August 5, 2023.
He stated this in a statement he personally signed on Monday in Abuja.
The senator said that he is of the firm belief, based on available facts at the disposal of the police, that his aide was killed by a syndicate of soldiers operating under the newly deployed Commander of 9 Brigade, Ikeja Cantonment of the Nigeria Army, Brigadier General Nsikan John Edet, through the mounting of checkpoints and robberies.
According to him, his aide, Mr. Sanni, was stopped at a checking point around Ojodu-Berger Area on his way to his home at Isheri by “security agents” who asked him to provide the documents of the car he was driving, which he did via a call to his wife, who sent all the documents to his phone via WhatsApp.
His wife was contacted a short while later, and the late Mr. Sanni informed her that the troops were still reviewing the vehicle’s documents.
That was the last she heard from her husband, and his body, riddled with gunfire, was subsequently recovered near a military barrack in the Toyota Bus Stop section of Oshodi.
Senator Adeola noted that top police sources familiar with the investigation informed him that a similar brutal killing and armed robbery occurred near the same Ojodu-Berger late Thursday night of August 17, 2023, resulting in the death of another Nigerian whose body was discovered near Iyana-Ipaja after he was taken away by soldiers from the checkpoint.
In the senator’s testimony, the person in the automobile they killed and took away was the second car in a convoy of two cars travelling to the same location.
He stated that the first car passed through the soldiers’ checkpoint, but the second car was stopped to verify his vehicle’s documents. After a while, the occupant of the first car (name withheld) called his colleague in the second car, who informed him that he was being escorted to Iyana Ipaja by the soldiers at the checkpoint.
That was the last he heard from him, and his body was eventually discovered abandoned on the road, just like Mr. Sanni’s. The survivor of the first automobile reported the incident to police, and a pattern of armed robbery and homicide in the area involving guys in Army uniforms was established.
Senator Adeola has called on the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Taoreed Lagbaja, to direct the hunt for his aide’s killers for further investigation, prosecution, and justice for the deceased, as a pattern of killings and armed robbery has been established against soldiers mounting late-night checkpoints around Ikeja, with similar unreported incidences in recent times around Ikeja, adding that the Nigerian Army cannot be seen to condone or harbour rogue
Mr. Sanni’s black Toyota Camry, phones, and other valuables, he claims, have yet to be retrieved.