Akapo Samo, a Nigerian Naval officer, shot and killed Martins Olamide, a 36-year-old man at Sholebo Estate in Ikorodu, Lagos State, on Sunday.
The deceased went to render support to Seyi Ogunkoya, a friend who was assaulted and brutally injured by Samo, the naval officer at Seaside Recreational Centre in Ikorodu, but he ended up getting murdered in cold blood.
HOW IT HAPPENED — ACCOUNT OF EYEWITNESS
Ogunkoya visited the recreational centre on Sunday.
He wanted to buy a cocktail drink. But at the designated point of payment, there was an altercation between him and the staff member in charge of the Point of Sales (POS) terminal.
“Seyi (Ogunkoya) went to Seaside Recreational Centre in Ikorodu, to get a gelato cocktail. On getting there, he wanted to make a payment to pick what he wanted to buy. The lady there refused to give her the POS machine to input his pin. She was requesting that he should input the pin in her hand,” Yusuf Tiamiyu, an associate of the deceased, told FIJ on Wednesday through a phone call.
The POS operator’s insistence that the PIN be input while the terminal was placed on his palm led to his refusal, and subsequently led to a heated argument.
“A naval officer (Samo) who was stationed there to secure the environment interfered without even listening to Seyi’s side of the story, and started beating Seyi”.The physical assault on Seyi by the officer led to a head injury, for which he immediately alerted his friends to get medical attention. The friends, spearheaded by Olamide, confronted the officer for the assault.
Olamide, along with his friends, went to the recreational centre on Seyi’s alert, while they took him to Everest Hospital at Sholebo for medical care.
“Olamide and Seyi’s younger brother went to meet Seyi at the seaside before they went to the hospital. I also went to meet them at the hospital,” Segun Awotunde, a witness, told FIJ on Wednesday evening,When Segun got to the hospital where Seyi had been taken to for treatment, he discovered that the naval officer and his colleague were also at the gate.
“Olamide was coming out of the hospital, and the two naval officers were at the gate. The naval officer who shot him said he had been keeping an eye on him,” the witness said.
Olamide’s confrontation with this officer at Sholebo Hospital led to questioning the justification for assaulting Seyi at the recreational centre, which in turn escalated to him getting shot and killed by the naval officer.
“As the naval officer was talking to Olamide, he was following him with a serious punch. He didn’t react but was running away, while the officer was pursuing him to where he went to hide behind a vehicle, and the next thing was a gunshot,” said Awotunde.
According to him, the naval officers immediately fled the scene while they tried rushing Olamide to Everest Hospital at Sholebo Estate, where he was declared dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
FIJ learnt that Samo, the trigger-happy naval officer, is currently detained at Panti, Lagos state Criminal Investigation Department (CID). However, the Nigerian Navy has yet to release a statement on the incident.
FIJ called and messaged Hafsat Uthman, the Panti CID Public Relations Officer, who confirmed that the officer had been detained and an investigation was underway.
“The deceased’s family were here not quite long today with their lawyer, and they had a meeting with the sectional officer,” she said.
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