A police source said the naval man had an issue with the butcher and it nearly resulted in a clash, adding that the official shot into the air twice to scare him away

An official of the Nigerian Navy is on the run after he reportedly shot dead a butcher at Kara Market, a border area between Lagos and Ogun states along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

It was learnt that a disagreement had ensued between the military man and the butcher on Saturday, which degenerated into a shouting match.

Our correspondent gathered that the trigger-happy naval man fled the scene as a protest erupted afterwards.

Policemen from Ogun and Lagos states were said to have mobilised to the scene to restore normalcy.

A police source said the naval man had an issue with the butcher and it nearly resulted in a clash, adding that the official shot into the air twice to scare him away.

“When the butcher did not budge, the officer then shot him and he died on the spot,” the source added.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Bala Elkana, said police got a distress call and responded accordingly.

“The man escaped before the police arrived. We have launched investigation into the case,” he said.

The spokesperson for the Ogun State Police Command, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the corpse of the victim had been deposited in a mortuary in Sagamu for autopsy.

“It was one of the naval officers posted to Kara who was involved in the shooting. I have not been fully briefed on the incident. We are investigating to know the identities of those naval men.”

The Command Information Officer, Western Navy Command, Lagos, Commodore Tom Otuji, did not answer our correspondent’s calls to his mobile and had yet to reply to a text message sent to him as of press time.