(MRA/IFEX) – On 6 January 2006, Deji Ademakinwa, a cameraman with Galaxy Television in Lagos, was assaulted and seriously wounded by policemen in a parking lot in the Ikoyi area of Lagos. Ademakinwa, armed only with his camera, was sitting in a parked Galaxy Television staff vehicle waiting for his colleague, who had gone into […]
(MRA/IFEX) – On 6 January 2006, Deji Ademakinwa, a cameraman with Galaxy Television in Lagos, was assaulted and seriously wounded by policemen in a parking lot in the Ikoyi area of Lagos.
Ademakinwa, armed only with his camera, was sitting in a parked Galaxy Television staff vehicle waiting for his colleague, who had gone into a nearby building, when the policemen sighted him.
The officers had been extorting money from the drivers of passing commercial vehicles. Apparently thinking that he had been recording their activities with his camera, the policemen attacked and injured Ademakinwa. The bloodied cameraman was taken to the hospital by the policemen who committed the assault, who also paid for his treatment.
Dotun Saseyi, Galaxy Television’s head of news and current affairs, said that station management met with the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Emmanuel Adebayo, to formally lodge a complaint. The police commissioner promised that the police would investigate the incident and punish the culprits.
The police subsequently took swift action on the matter and the two policemen responsible for assaulting the cameraman, Idowu Akinsusi and Alaba Olumide, were dismissed from service by the Lagos State Police Command. The State Police Command charged them with abandoning their posts at Onikan Police Division and engaging in illegal activities.
