When the death sentence was handed down, penultimate week, as verdict against the killer cop and suspended Assistant Superintendent of police, Drambi Vandi , it seemed to me that matter would be one of the fastest to be decided in recent times. Outside election cases, which are statutorily time barred, I have hardly seen any civil case, not to go the whole hug of a murder charge, concluded in less than ten months. Justice Ibironke Hassan sentenced the policeman to death by hanging after finding him guilty of the murder of a lagos based pregnant lawyer, Bolanle Raheem. The Judge held that the convict should be hung by the neck until he dies.
Vandi, attached to the Ajiwe police station in Ajah, Lagos State, shot Raheem while she was returning from an outing with her family members on Christmas day, December 25, 2022. While delivering the judgment, Justice Harrison held that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and that there was overwhelming evidence it was the convict who shot the gun that killed the deceased.
‘The death of the deceased was instantaneous. There is no other explanation. It was the gunshot that shattered the side glass and pierced the victim’s chest. it is the defendant that had an AK-47 riffle whose ammunition was missing after the armorer counted it’ Justice Harrison said. She added that the defendant did not say that the shooting was an accidental discharge which should have earned him a lighter sentence of manslaughter. She ordered that Vandi should be hung until he dies.
Lagos State government, in a charge dated December 28, 2022 and alleged that Vandi killed Raheem contrary to section 223 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State. Nigerians were infuriated by that Christmas day tragedy. The press feasted on the story thus arousing the anger of a nation where law enforcement agents have turned themselves into enemies of the people. There has been scores of issues of killing of Nigerians by the police. In March 2019, Ogar Jumbo was driving his two children to school in Nyanya area in Abuja before he was reportedly beaten to death by officers of the police. He was said to have violated traffic offence, resulting in an argument with the officers who beat him physically until he breathed his last. Reports say that 92 Nigerians were sent to the great beyond by the police between March 2019 to February 2020. The investigative report by TheCable did not cover crime suspects or those who died in police custody, neither did it touch on those allegedly killed by other security agencies. Some of the most prominent reasons for such killings, according to the report, include refusal to give bribe, argument, ‘accidental discharge’ and attempt to disperse protests. For instance, in February, 2020, while residents of Azagba community in Edo State protested the death of one Fredrick, a member of their community allegedly killed by a policeman during an argument, a team of policemen deployed to quell the protest ended up killing four more persons.
Also, when residents of Sagamu in Ogun State trooped out in their numbers to protest the death of Tiamiyu Kazeem, a professional footballer who plied his trade with Remo stars football club, killed by a policeman, little did they know that three of them would end up getting killed as well. Alleged refusal to give bribe to the officers led to the death of at least five persons. Including a motorcyclist who was reportedly killed for refusing to give one hundred naira bribe.
Some opinion leaders have opined that policemen vent their spleen on the people, who have no hand in their poor conditions of service. I have heard it said that the Vandi’s action was accidental discharge, that he meant to bring the AK-47 down from his shoulders before it exploded. Even if that was anything to go by, I am inclined to ask the original intent for wanting to unhang the gun? Did occupants of the vehicle where that slain female lawyer rode with her husband look like criminals or what? These questions are coming late in the day as the arguments have been exhausted in court, preceding the death sentence verdict of the court. There has been no indication that he would appeal the judgement. His lawyer said he had a spiritual call to stand as his counsel and was, therefore, waiting for another such call before he would go on appeal. When Vandi was arraigned on January 16, 2023 for allegedly shooting the 41-year-old pregnant lawyer at Ajah roundabout in Lekki -Ajay Expressway, he pleaded not guilty and the court granted accelerated hearing on the case. To make matters worse, Vandi’s colleagues who were on duty with him, when the shooting took place, testified against him. They saw the incident first hand. The judge’s hands were tied given that the evidence must have been overwhelming.
Justice has been served to the killer cop. It was not delayed going by Nigerian standard. The import is that cases can be disposed in record time if the parties involved put their mind to it. This matter gave the face of a special case. The victim was a lawyer and a woman. The public was enraged by the incident, and the Judge was also a woman. Perhaps the sentiments above accelerated the matter to elicit the fast trial. They delay in justice, which seem to have become a hallmark of Nigeria’s temple of justice can be turned around given that a murder charge can be dispensed with in nine months.
This must be one of the fastest murder cases in the land. Lawyers were in solidarity with their slain colleague. They matched on the streets, and the judge may have been swayed to accelerate the hearing given that the trigger-happy cop hit a fellow lady with his bullet. He killed two people given that the lady was pregnant. we hope this this matter would become the needed deterrent for prospective trigger-happy security people.