Beyond the wide condemnation that have appropriately followed the gruesome murder of Mrs. Omobolanle Raheem, a Lagos-based lawyer and her twin babies by a trigger-happy Assistant Superintendent of Police , Drambi Vandi last Christmas day, the tragedy has again raised the urgent need to pay more than lip service to police reform in the country. Mrs. Raheem’s killing is one too many and should not be allowed to fizzle out as one more unresolved murder in Nigeria.
The country has tolerated too many murderers and hired assassins who successfully commit murders and get away with them owing to either sheer incompetence or unwillingness of the police and security personnel to track down the killers and bring them to justice. For example, till date the police is yet to unmask the killers of Mr. Abayomi Ogundeji, a journalist aged 38. On December 22 2006, another journalist Mr. Godwin Agbroko was assassinated in cold blood on his way back home after work.
The authorities should ensure that there would be no obstruction of justice in the course of bringing the killer to book. Happily, the Nigerian Bar Association has raised a Panel of its members to ensure that Mrs. Raheem and Buraimoh get justice. It is the failure to obtain justice in several murder and hired assassination cases in this country that begets more murders and assassinations in Nigeria.