General
Missing Police Found Buried in Shallow Grave in Lagos
By Dipo Olowookere
The remains of a detective attached to the Special Anti- Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, Lagos State Police Command, have been found in a shallow grave at the Ibeju Lekki area of the metropolis.
The cop, identified as Inspector Musa Sunday, was abducted about six months bu=y some thugs, who tortured him and later buried alive while on illegal duty at Ibeju Lekki.
Sunday and four of his men were alleged to have been drafted to guard a land, which was under dispute by their Admin Officer (AO), at Ibeju Lekki.
The policemen were drafted to the disputed land without the knowledge of the Officer in Charge of SARS (OC) and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni. The skeleton of the inspector, 45, a father of four children, with their ages ranging from four, six, eight and 12, was exhumed from a shallow grave after six months search.
At least five persons, including a traditional ruler, otherwise known as Baale have been arrested in connection with the murder of the inspector. A police source said: “The police are hunting for one Mr Balogun, who led the hoodlums that attacked, abducted and buried Sunday alive.
In fact, information at police disposal says that it was the fleeing Balogun that tied his hands before burying him. Balogun’s second in command, Arokin is in police custody. He’s helping police with investigation.”
The suspects confessed to have buried him alive after starving him for more than five days. They also admitted to have buried him alive on the orders of a traditional ruler, who has interest in the land under dispute.
Sunday was abducted sometimes in November, while guarding the disputed land. The abductors made away with his rifle. The inspector, who was the leader of the team, was on duty with four other policemen.
The abductors, alleged to be armed to the teeth, stormed the land on that fateful day in November and over powered Sunday, his policemen and civilian guards, patrolling. The civilian guards were there on the instruction of one of the men struggling for possession of the land, identified simply as Prince, living in Ikeja.
The Prince and his opponent had allegedly been fighting over possession of the land for months. This has led to several people, from both factions, being killed and maimed. A police source said that both men had been warring, using paid thugs, until Prince decided to take SARS men.
But rather than go through the proper channel, which was to contact Owoseni or OC SARS, Prince went to his friend, the AO. When the AO ordered Sunday with some policemen to the land, the Inspector couldn’t argue with his superior.
Sunday was kidnapped when he confronted a large number of thugs from the other faction. The thugs attacked, injured and attempted to carry away some of Prince’s thugs. An inside source said: “Sunday’s men abandoned him and ran away because the thugs from the other faction large expanse of land.
The Prince came to SARS to get policemen to keep his opponent from encroaching on the land.” After his abduction, his phone stopped going through. His colleagues became frantic. Sunday’s wife and family members besieged the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters, Ikeja, demanding to know what had become of him. Speaking with a journalist a few months after the abduction of Sunday, his wife, Halimat, 27, said:
“They were deployed there to maintain peace. We learnt that hoodlums were attacking a man, so my husband and his men moved to rescue the man. He told the other two policemen to go and put the man in the car so he could be safe.
The hoodlums pounced on my husband and took him away. Sensing danger as the hoodlums kept increasing in number, his men ran away. Since then, we have not heard from him.” On the fateful day of the incident, Halimat said that she spoke with Sunday around 4pm; he promised to come home the following day.
In the evening, his kids demanded to speak with him, so Halimat called his line repeatedly, but it didn’t go through. In the morning, some of his colleagues called Halimat and told her what happened. Since then, Halimat and Sunday’s family members had been visiting the police headquarters in Lagos, praying and hoping.
She added, “Three months after, police kept telling us that they were on the matter. We learnt they have arrested the Prince that hired the hoodlums, but nothing has happened since then. His children keep asking after him. His aged mother, who has high blood pressure, has not stopped asking for his whereabouts. We don’t know what else to tell her.”
Halimat, a housewife, noted that since Sunday’s disappearance, she and her kids have been struggling to survive. She’s no longer able to pay the kids’ school fees. She said: “Nobody from the police cared to check on us, and now we don’t have money because we don’t have access to his ATM pin.
“I want my husband to come back. The children are suffering, and I can’t carry the load alone.”
A police source said: “Sunday was posted there with his team; they were five in number. Two of the policemen later left, saying they were tired of the constant threat.
Even soldiers that were supposed to guard the land with them left, complaining that Prince had never bothered to ask about their welfare. “Sunday has been on that land for almost three weeks when bulldozer entered the land.
Prince’s faction was overpowered. Everyone scampered for safety, but one of Prince’s thugs were held. Sunday ran back to save him. It was in that split second that his policemen and the man he saved drove off in a vehicle, leaving him.
Sunday was grabbed by the hoodlums, beaten and injured.” It was gathered that the fleeing policemen ran to Mobile Police Force (Mopol) 49, Epe. They explained that an inspector had been abducted, that they needed help to rescue him, but the commander allegedly didn’t respond to their pleas.
The policemen moved to Akodo Police Station, where a woman happened to be the Divisional Police Officer (DPO). The DPO said she couldn’t send anyone to the area because it was a volatile axis.
They went to SARS, Ikeja to report and for five days, no action was taken to rescue Sunday. Later, policemen started looking for Sunday, to the extent of going to Bonny Camp, Victoria Island. The soldiers said Sunday wasn’t with them. When the OC SARS went to meet Owoseni, to intimate him of the missing inspector, Owoseni demanded to know the person that deployed Sunday and his men on the illegal duty.
Determined to find Sunday, sources said that the OC SARS approached the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Abba Kyari. It was alleged that through the efforts of the IRT operatives, Sunday’s phone was tracked and some of his alleged killers arrested.
The suspects took police to where Sunday’s rifle was buried. A police source said: “Police investigation also led to the arrest of the traditional ruler. The traditional ruler denied knowing anything about the disappearance of Sunday.
He was invited to the police command; but rather than honour police invitation, he ran to Police Force Headquarters, Abuja. He was told at Abuja to go back to Lagos and respondfirst to police invitation.”
The source continued: “Balogun, who led the operation in which Sunday was kidnapped is on the run. But his second in command, Arokin, has been arrested. Arokin confessed that Sunday was buried alive.
He took police to the shallow grave at Ibeju Lekki. Police brought pathologists from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), to exhume Sunday’s corpse. “One of the pathologists, when he saw Sunday’s skeleton, said that it looked as if he was buried with his hands tied behind.
It was at that point that Arokin confessed that Sunday was buried alive. He disclosed that after beating and disarming Sunday, he and his colleagues waited for five days for policemen to come for him, but nobody did.
In those five days, they didn’t give him food. He said that when police didn’t come searching for Sunday; the traditional ruler instructed them to go and bury the inspector alive. The traditional ruler said that nothing would happen. Sunday was buried alive.”
Source: New Telegraph
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
President Bola Tinubu on Thursday directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to vacate the court ordering the freezing of the bank account of the Osun Srate government.
In a statement today by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, the President said he’s “deeply embarrassed not by the EFCC’s exercise of its mandate backed by a court order” because of its timing, which is just a few days to the governorship election in the state next Saturday.
According to him, actions of an institution of State, especially at the Federal level, is always credited to me, as the President, even when I may not have had any prior knowledge of the action.
“Since assuming office, I have consistently maintained that anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies must be allowed to discharge their statutory responsibilities independently, professionally, without fear or favour, or political interference. I have therefore deliberately refrained from directing or interfering in the operational activities of the EFCC or any other investigative or prosecutorial agency because I firmly believe that strong democratic institutions, operating within the confines of the law, are indispensable to democratic good governance and the rule of law.
“As President, I am committed to allowing institutions of State to function and take any action they consider necessary in the interest of proper governance without the need for any prior approval. Indeed, that is why institutions are set up by law with clearly defined powers. While I am yet to be fully apprised of the facts which informed the action of EFCC in approaching the court to obtain the said order freezing the Osun State Government account, I am not in the slightest doubt that the timing of the action of EFCC is inauspicious, and therefore I feel compelled to intervene.
“Osun State is only a few days away from its gubernatorial election. Therefore, nothing ought to be done to give an impression that the EFCC or indeed any other agency of the federal government is being used to interfere with the election.
“Based on the foregoing premise, I am duty-bound to issue a directive on this issue in consonance with the overriding public interest in preserving public confidence and the integrity, credibility, and fairness of our democratic process.
“Accordingly, I have directed the EFCC to immediately proceed to the court to vacate the order and discontinue whatever action it has instituted against the Osun State Government in this regard,” the statement stated.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has explained why it initiated a move to freeze the bank account of the Osun State government.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Governor of Osun State, Mr Ademola Adeleke, claimed that the anti-money laundering agency asked one of its bankers, First Bank, not to release funds to the state government.
According to the Governor, this was part of the strategies to frustrate his administration ahead of the August 15, 2026, governorship election in the state.
Reacting to the issue on Wednesday night, the EFCC, in a statement, said it has been investigating the state government since March 2026 over an alleged “fraudulent handling of Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) account to the tune of N11.0 billion.
The organisation noted that some officials of the state government, especially the Accountant General of the State, have had interview sessions with investigators of the EFCC.
“These ongoing investigations of the state government would not have warranted any placement of Post No Debit order on its account but for the precipitate and unwarranted movement of funds from the accounts to different suspicious accounts since August 2, 2026.
“The commission noticed huge transfers of funds into different corporate entities and had to swiftly halt the trend by freezing the accounts from which such heavy funds are being moved,” parts of the statement said.
In the disclosure, the agency noted that its preventive mandate is a public-inclined framework of safeguarding public funds, assets and resources, stressing that it cannot “watch idly while a state government’s account is being pillaged.”
“While the commission is fully aware of the impending governorship election in Osun State, it has a responsibility to act in defence of the sanctity of the funds of the state. It will be uncharitable for the commission to allow an excuse of an upcoming election to fold its arms to perform its legally-assigned functions,” it pointed out.
The EFCC disclosed that it is “keeping watch over the finances of other states like Osun State. Many of these states are on the investigative radar of the commission to ensure accountability and probity. The commission has always pointed out that it is non-partisan and non-sectarian but always working in the overall interests of Nigerians. The Osun State government account was frozen to save public funds from being looted.”
The organisation urged the public “to ignore false narratives and deliberate demonisation of the works of the EFCC. The interests of all Nigerians are greater and will always be protected by the commission.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has launched a mobile application designed to monitor fuel consumption patterns in real time across retail outlets nationwide.
The NMDPRA, established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, is responsible for the technical and commercial regulation of Nigeria’s midstream and downstream petroleum operations. The deployment of the mobile application aligns with the authority’s broader efforts to leverage technology to improve regulatory compliance and strengthen accountability.
The pilot phase of the project began on August 1 in Abuja and its six Area Councils, the authority said in a statement published on X.
As part of the rollout, the Executive Director for Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure (DSSRI), Mr Ogbugo Ukoha, led a team alongside officials from the Abuja Regional Office to assess the readiness and operational performance of the digital platform at participating retail outlets.
According to the NMDPRA, the application captures inventory and compliance data in real time, enabling regulators to monitor fuel distribution more effectively while improving operational efficiency across the sector.
The authority said the platform would generate reliable, data-driven insights to support evidence-based decision-making, strengthen national energy security planning and enhance transparency in the downstream petroleum industry.
It added that the initiative is expected to provide significant value to government, investors, operators and other stakeholders by improving access to accurate fuel consumption and compliance data.
Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector has undergone significant changes since the deregulation of the petrol market and the removal of fuel subsidies, with regulators placing greater emphasis on data-driven supervision to ensure product availability, prevent supply disruptions and discourage sharp regional disparities in distribution.
