OPERATIVES of the Directorate of State Security in Nigeria who launched an unprovoked attack on an American visiting the country for Christmas and New Year celebrations, and successfully hid the facts of their crime, may soon generate discomforting ripples between Nigeria and the United States.
Sources told sharpedgenews.com that the Nigeria-born American citizen resident in the state of New Jersey, Mr. Olajide Ojo was severally shot in broad daylight at the Erekesan Market in Akure, Ondo State by operatives of the Ekiti State branch of the DSS.
Eyewitnesses told sharpedgenews.com that Olajide Oho, a former student of Oyemekun Grammar School in Akure was accosted near the Central Mosque in the capital city and ordered to lie facedown, before several shots were fired into his right leg by the DSS operatives who alleged that the holiday maker was a notorious armed robber who held local charms that would make bullets impenetrable.
“That was the story given to gullible bystanders who demanded that be completely killed,” said a bystander who requested anonymity.
While he was being shot, a member of the squad launched after the car driven by Mr. Ojo. The DSS official broke the windshield, the lights and destroyed the car’s panel with several gun shots.
Although it later turned out that Olajide Ojo was a wrong target, they arrested him and took him to their Akure office near the Alagbaka Government House, where the agency changed it s argument once it got the bleeding man into its compound.
The DSS alleged that Ojo was merely suspected of breaking into an official convoy in Benin City, Edo State, the day before.
According to sources, the only reason for suspecting that Olajide Ojo was the culprit who daringly broke into an official convoy in Benin City was because a black car was involved, and since Olajide Ojo was caught the following day driving a black car, even while other specifics were not clear, he had to be shot.
Just when it had become legal to punish by extra-judicial execution for driving close to official convoys, the DSS is yet to establish.
The DSS in Ekiti State claimed that its convoy was interrupted in Edo State and came to Ondo State with raw force.
And in order to hide the fact of the recklessness, the DSS, through its Ekiti State director, promptly warned Olajide Ojo not to talk to journalists, promising him a handsome reward and dire reprisals if the deed was kept secret or otherwise divulged.
When hordes of journalists from sharpedgenews.com, Punch, Tribune and National Mirror visited the hospital where Olajide Ojo was being treated, he insulted them, accusing them of endangering his life. No one is sure how much he was paid to keep the news secret.
Ojo even denied knowing his own lawyer and screamed, trying to know the identity of the newshounds who merely came to get the truth about his ordeal.