By Evelyn USMAN
I swear to God, I did not kill him intentionally, I thought they were robbers” This were the words of 27-old Kazeem Oladipupo, a night guard who is currently facing a murder charge.

The service of Oladipupo was hired by residents of Oyero Road, Agbado in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun state, three weeks ago, following incessant robbery attacks on them. The robbers as gathered, most times, stormed the area in motorcycles which aided their movements particularly during escape.

However, when the services of some night guards among whom was Oladipupo was hired, motorcyclists were banned from operating around the area as from 12 midnight.

Barely one week after his resumption, an unusual presence of some unidentified persons on motorcycles were sighted in the area at the restricted time, leading to one of them being shot dead by Oladipupo.

But the irony of his action was that the dead intruder was reportedly discovered to be innocent after all, leading to Oladipupo’s subsequent arrest. He is currently at the Homicide section of the Ogun State Criminal Investigations Department.

In this interview with Crime Guard, the Igbo-Ora, Oyo state born suspect who was full of remorse, wished the hand of the clock could be turned back in order for him to outrightly refuse the offer of vigilante membership.

He said, “I am a member of OPC and my service was sought to secure the area, with a monthly take home pay of N12,000. If I had known it would turn out like this, I would have remained in the okada business I was doing, than accepting this offer. Now I have not even worked up to a month let alone receive the monthly salary.

“What happened that night was that we sighted two motorcycles at about 12.30 am with three persons on each of them. One of my colleagues, Kehinde, flagged the motorcyclists down with a view to questioning them on why they should flout the restriction order and also to search them to ascertain whether they were armed or not. But they did not stop. In Kehinde’s bid to forcefully stop one of the motorcycles, the rider hit him and he fell inside the gutter. But he quickly got up and shot the rear tyre of one of the motorcycles.

At that moment I sensed danger and thought they were robbers. In defense, I aimed at one of them  with the intention of shooting him in the leg”.

But he misfired as the bullet hit his target in the chest, killing him on the spot. The deceased, later identified as Sowemimo Afolabi’s destination could however not be ascertained.

Corroborating Oladipupo’s confession, his colleague, Kehinde Agbaje, claimed the intruders were armed with dangerous weapons such as cutlasses and had  intended to eliminate them that night.

21-year-old Kehinde who was arrested alongside Oladipupo, stated, “they were all carrying cutlasses and that was what made us conclude they were robbers who were on a sinister mission around the area. It was when I fired at the tyre of their motorcycles that they all got down and ran to different directions for safety, before Oladipupo fired one of them in error. He never meant to kill him but to effect his arrest. We were even the ones that removed his remains and kept it close-by”, stated Kehinde.

Stating emphatically that suspicion was not an excuse to kill any of the motorcyclists, Ogun State Commissioner of Police, Mr Musa Daura, who confirmed their arrest, said, “the suspects are yet to establish whether the six men they claimed rode through the affected area at night on motorcycles were actually armed robbers before they resorted to shooting”

Daura explained that the Divisional Police Officer in-charge of Agbado Station received a telephone call from a resident that a corpse was dumped along Oyero Road, Agbado consequent upon which some policemen from the division visited the scene and removed the remains.

“Detectives swung into action and during preliminary investigation, identified the corpse as that of one Lekan Sowemimo Afolabi, while the two suspects; Kehinde Ajagbe and Kazeem Oladipupo were arrested in connection with the murder. The  command will leave no stone unturned in getting to the root of the matter, with a view to unearthening the mystery behind the dastard murder”.

Daura assured that the suspects would be arraigned in court at the end of  the police investigation.