Six traders were shot dead on 27 August 2025 at Owode Onirin motor spare parts market during an enforcement of a contested land claim. The police officers who fired the shots were brought from Nasarawa State by property developer Abiodun Ariori, acting as agent for a Lagos family claiming ownership of the land.
The then Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Moshood Olohundare Jimoh, ordered an investigation. Four police officers—Inspectors Musa Bala and Ahmed Abass, and Corporals Ibrahim Kasimu and Ibrahim Garba—were arrested and dismissed from service. The police obtained autopsy reports from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital and ballistic examination findings from the Force Criminal Investigation Department, both reportedly linking the suspects to the killings. Jimoh told journalists the matter had not been swept under the carpet and that justice would be done. He was later promoted to Assistant Inspector General of Police.
Then the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions intervened. In a legal advice dated 3 March 2026, DPP Babajide Martins ruled there was no prima facie case against any suspect. He said the officers acted in self-defence. The DPP blamed the police for failing to provide forensic evidence, autopsy reports, ballistic analysis, and firearm examination. All charges of felony and involuntary manslaughter under Lagos State Criminal Law were withdrawn, and the suspects walked free.
But the police pushed back. On 5 March 2026, DCP Dayo Akinbisehin, officer in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department, wrote to the DPP insisting that evidence had been submitted and was compelling enough to secure conviction. He urged Martins to reconsider. Martins ignored him. Shortly after, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu elevated Martins to Permanent Secretary (Director, State Counsel). What followed was an extraordinary inversion: the police demanding prosecution of their own dismissed officers while the state's chief prosecutor blocked the path to court.
The DPP's self-defence finding erases how the violence began. Armed police personnel imported from Nasarawa descended on a Lagos market to enforce a contested land claim. Traders resisted. Six were killed and several injured. No legitimate self-defence ends that way.
The Centre for Human and Socio-Economic Rights has called for the removal of Lagos State Attorney General Lawal Pedro, SAN, alleging his office emboldened the lawlessness that led to the massacre. Ariori's lawyer has stated publicly that Pedro chaired a stakeholders' meeting where the land dispute was discussed. Pedro reportedly told traders their allocation letters did not amount to legal ownership. If true, this raises serious questions about whether the ministry of justice acted impartially.
