By Lukman Olabiyi
A coroner’s inquest has affirmed that Nigeria Police is responsible for the death of a 25-years-old lady, Jumoke Oyeleke whom her corpse was found in Ojota, Lagos after aborted rally of pro Yoruba Nation agitators, last year.
The coroner inquest was initiated by the Lagos State Government to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death Oyeleke and at its final sitting on the incident on Monday, indicted the police, for being responsible for death of the deceased.
The coroner was presided over by Mukaila Fadeyi, at the State Magistrates’ Court in Ogba.
Ms Oyeleke, 25, was shot dead on 3 July, when the police attempted to disperse Yoruba Nation rally at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park in Ojota by firing guns and tear gas canisters into the air.
The Coroner noted that the only logical conclusion is that the deceased died from a weapon by the Nigerian police.
Magistrate Fadeyi in his recommendations said that there is a need for “training, retraining and reorientation of the police on the right to hold protests especially in a democratic setting.”
He urged the Inspector-General of Police to “fish out the bad eggs and ensure that they are brought to book to forestall further accidental killings.”
He also recommended that the federal government compensate the family of the deceased.
He advised the police authorities to provide mental and medical checkups to their officers to determine their suitability to bear arms.
Mr Fadeyi stressed that the security operatives deployed to protest grounds should not have been given live bullets.
He added that the scene of the incident – Ojota, should “never be cordoned off.”
“The commissioner for justice should be mandated by the state government to forward the recommendations to the relevant authority for implementation.
“There is a need for the state to fund the activities of the coroner’s Act 2015, in order to stem unwarranted and unlawful killings in the state and to bring to book the perpetrators,” he said.
On July 3, Yoruba Nation agitators converged on the Ojota area of Lagos to demand an independent state for the southwest region.
It’s reported that police shot into the air and used teargas to disperse the crowd.
During the protest, Jumoke, a 25-year-old salesgirl, was found dead after police fired shots to disperse agitators.
The police denied firing live bullets at the protest and claimed that an examination of her body revealed stab wounds as the likely cause of her death.
But, an autopsy report from the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital showed that Jumoke died from “hemopericardium, disruption to the heart and lungs and missile injury to the chest”.
Subsequently following the controversy surrounding the death, and the public outcry, the state government set up a coroner’s inquest to unravel the misery behind the cause of the death and provided a recommendation.