By Linus Akomolafe
A police officer, CSP Kazeem Sumonu Abonde has been confirmed dead following a raid in the Ajao Estate area, Lagos.
IkejaBird learnt that troubled began when Task Force operatives raided the estate in an attempt to clamp down on okada riders and motorcycles which led to a protest by okada riders with support from street urchins, destroying cars and properties worth millions of naira.
In a statement made available to news men on Friday by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Adekunle Ajisebutu, the incidents occured when tactical teams comprising of men drawn from RRS, Taskforce, Ajao Estate Division and other divisions were carrying out raid of flashpoints and enforcing ban on use of motorcycles in restricted areas in the Estata.
Ajisebutu said: ” The exercise was a routine proactive approach aimed at curtailing activities of armed robbers and other criminal elements in the State. Similar exercises were carried out in the past in other parts of the state which have resulted in reduction in crimes in the areas”
“After the successful operations which led to the arrest of some of the suspects, other criminal elements and hoodlums in their large number laid siege to the exit of the Estate and attacked the policemen with guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons,”
Ajisebutu explained that during the fatal attack, CSP Kazeem Sumonu Abonde attached to the Operations Department of the Command was brutally killed by the hoodlums and that DPO Ajao Estate, CSP Abdullahi Malla and other Police officers equally sustained varying degrees of injuries while the corpse of the deceased officer has been deposited at the Yaba Mainland Hospital for autopsy.
Meanwhile, Ajisebutu stated that the Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu while condemning the attack on the policemen directed that a discreet investigation into the incident should be carried out immediately, vowing that all suspects responsible for the act would be brought to book soon.
