Riot Over Slain Youth Averted

The plan by youths in Ifako Ijaiye Council of Lagos to invade the Pen Cinema Police Station in Agege, in retaliation for the alleged killing of Ademola Aderinto a day earlier, was on Tuesday averted by the swift intervention of the council Chairman and assembly representative for the area.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that council chairman, Mr. Oloruntoba Oke, and the lawmaker representing the area, Mr. Dayo Fafunmi, appealed to the youths for calm.

NAN reports that the youths had mobilised in their hundreds around Kayode St., Ogba, for a reprisal attack on Pen Cinema Police Divisional Headquarters.

One of the leaders of the youth who spoke with NAN on grounds of anonymity, explained that their plan was “to invade the station and get our pound of flesh.

“Records show that the victims of extra judicial killings in Nigeria never get justice. We wanted to get justice for Ademola.”

Meanwhile, NAN learnt that Segun Fabunmi, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Pen Cinema Police Divisional Headquarters, who allegedly shot Aderinto and his friends on Monday, had been arrested and detained on the orders of the Lagos State Police Commissioner, Yakubu Alkali.

Fabunmi, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), allegedly shot dead Aderinto and wounded three others, while the youths were playing football on the street at Ogba, Lagos, during Monday’s nationwide protest against petrol subsidy removal.

Addressing the youths, the lawmaker assured them that the Lagos State Government had promised to ensure that the policeman responsible was duly punished, and urged them not to take the laws into their hands.

The Lagos State Police Commissioner had ordered that the DPO be detained at the special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, pending investigations into the incident.