A Lagos High Court in Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), was on Wednesday told how Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Drambi Vandi, begged to be given a bullet to replace the one he had allegedly used to kill a Lagos-based lawyer, Mrs. Omobolanle Raheem in the Ajah area of the state after he was arrested and taken into police custody.
Testifying before Justice Ibironke Harrison during the murder trial of the troubled cop, an Inspector with the Ajiwe police division at the time of the incident, Sunday Akagu, maintained that Vandi had asked for a bullet to replace his own because it was not complete after the shooting.
The witness said: “In the process of going to the police station, the defendant (Drambi Vandi) said, Odogwu, that’s my nickname, ‘help me with one ammunition and I said no, where will I have it to replace it?”
“Why will I give you my ammunition? And I got provoked and told my colleagues what he requested.”
While being led in evidence by the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), who asked if he obliged his colleague’s request, the witness replied, “No, over my dead body.”
In explaining how he got informed about the situation, Inspector Akagu posited that he alongside three other colleagues were patrolling on December 25, 2022, in the Ado area of Ajah, when they received a distress call from their division’s boss to come to the office.
“From our office, we moved to the Budo hospital, where the deceased was first taken to. It was at the Budo hospital, where we met the defendant and asked what happened, and he said, let’s discuss it at the station.
“Then the DPO ordered us to take the defendant to the station,” the witness added.
In stating that five of them visited the hospital, the witness maintained that he was tensed when he heard that his colleague “fired.”
During cross-examination by Adetokunbo Odutola, the defendant’s lawyer, the witness said that he wasn’t at the crime scene, adding, “We got to the police division around 1 p.m.”
Odutola had also queried;
At what point was the defendant disarmed?”
Inspector Akagu: “I was not there when he was disarmed.”
“When he entered our vehicle, l don’t know if his gun with him.
They disarmed him before we got to the hospital.”
Odutola: “Now you told the court that he asked you for the bullet, which gun would he then put the bullet in if he had been disarmed?”
Inspector Akagu: “I don’t know.”
Odutola: “Can you tell the court the number of the gun you booked?”
Inspector Akagu: “It is written in the arm diary. I don’t know it off hand.”
The murder trial has been adjourned until February 8 and 8, 2023.
It would be recalled that the state government had on January 16, 2023, begun Vandi’s prosecution for the alleged murder.
Vandi was arraigned by the state through its Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN) on a one-count charge of murder.
The charge reads: “ASP Vandi on the 25th of December 2022, at Ajah roundabout, along Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos, in the Lagos Judicial Division unlawfully killed one Omobolanle Raheem (F) by shooting her in the chest.”
Vandi had however pleaded not guilty to the charge.
