The Lagos State Police Command has announced the arrest of three suspects for allegedly robbing and killing Sanni Adeniyi, an aide of Senator Solomon Adeola.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, who made the announcement at the Command’s headquarters in Ikeja on Monday, September 18, 2023, disclosed that the suspects were arrested in Lagos and Oyo states.

Adeola, who is the senator representing Ogun West, had in a statement issued by his media aide, Kayode Odunaro, alleged that some soldiers killed Adeniyi.

However, the police commissioner said the suspects were not members of the Nigerian Army, stressing that they were armed robbers, who had served various jail terms before and were connected together while at the correctional centres in Lagos and Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Owohunwa said: “We present to you today three suspects behind the killing of Mr Sanni Adeniyi, which occurred between 1.00 a.m. and 2.00 a.m. on August 5.

“The arrest of the suspects, one Fred Okunnu, aged 43, Lucky Micheal, aged 33, and Adedigba Segun, aged 26, follows weeks of painstaking, diligent, and discreet intelligence and investigative sets of actions.

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“Items recovered from the suspects are one Brownie pistol with three rounds of live ammunition, one Beretta pistol with three rounds of live ammunition one locally made cut-to-size pistol with six live cartridges, and six expended cartridges.”

The police commissioner said the officers also recovered military gear (military camouflage vest, military jungle hat, military holster, jungle boots), and one Red Honda CRV, with Reg. No. EKY 276 JD allegedly hijacked from a yet-to-be-identified victim.

Owohunwa noted that an investigation revealed that the gang was being armed by one Alhaji (based in Benin Republic), who specialises in robbing motorists of their unregistered vehicles.

He said the suspects have been successful in five previous operations, stressing that their modus operandi includes stationing one gang member some metres from Berger bus stop, a boundary between Lagos and Ogun states, to spot unregistered vehicles.

Owohunwa added: “The spotter then calls his gang members, who are dressed in military attire and stationed somewhere around Berger bus stop, to inform them of the approaching vehicle.

“Once they stop their victim, they request for the vehicle custom papers, as they would need to clear security and customs checks. In this incident, after seeing the papers, they insisted on taking their victim to their base.

“Once they entered the vehicle, it dawned on Mr Sanni Adeniyi that they were robbers. He called out for help, which made the robbers shoot him thrice and further stabbed him.

“They dropped his corpse by the roadside and drove to Kuto, Abeokuta, where they cleaned up the blood stains in the rear seats of the vehicle and later same night proceeded with the vehicle to the border town of Chikanda in Kwara State, where the criminal receiver, one Alhaji took delivery of the car.”

Owohunwa further disclosed that the suspects adopted the use of military attire to beat security checkpoints.

The police boss stated that further investigations revealed that the said Alhaji has other cells operating across the country, stressing that as transnational crime, the Command was involving the Interpol for the apprehension of this criminal receiver and financier.

The Star