JUMOKE OYELEKE'S DEATH: CORONER FINDS POLICE RESPONSIBLE FOR TRADER'S DEATH DURING YORUBA NATION RALLY

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By Aishat Momoh. O.

The police have been charged following a coroner’s investigation into Jumoke Oyeleke’s death.

The coroner, Mukaila Fadeyi, declared that the police were to blame for her death on Monday at the Magistrate Court in Ogba, Lagos.

The police attempted to disperse the peaceful Yoruba Nation march at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park in Ojota on July 3 by shooting guns and tear gas canisters into the air. Ms. Oyeleke, 25, was shot and killed in the process.

“The only logical conclusion is that the deceased died from a weapon by the Nigerian police,” the coroner said.

“The deceased deserve our sympathy.”

The police immediately denied involvement after learning of her death, claiming that they did not fire “a single bullet” at the rally.

The autopsy results, however, refuted their claims.

The state government established an inquest, a fact-finding body to ascertain the facts surrounding her death, in an effort to get to the bottom of the tragedy.

The purpose of the coroner’s inquest was to determine the deceased’s identity as well as her cause, location, and manner of death. and to offer suggestions to prevent a recurrence.

The deceased’s mother, Ifeoluwa Oyeleke, the assistant commissioner of police, Tunde Adeniran, and Sunday Soyemi, a pathologist from LASUTH, were among the six witnesses at the inquest, which began in August 2021.

Also, a trader, David Okebe, told the coroner when he visited the scene of the incident that he saw some unidentified police officers ransacking the deceased after she was shot and left her for dead.

The coroner 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 be 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,” he said.

“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.”

Speaking with journalists, Taiwo Olawanle, the lawyer to the deceased family said that the verdict means that “there is hope for the ordinary masses.”

However, he insisted that the culprit should be fished out and recommended for prosecution by the police.