A peace advocacy group, World Institute for Peace has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba to quickly intervene in the spate of killings, harassment, extortion and invasion of residents’ privacy by men of the Osun Command of the Nigeria Police.
The group, which accused some police personnel in the State of high-handedness in the line of duty, revealed that those acts had become experiences which citizens in Osun have to go through on a daily basis.
They called on the State government to direct the Osun State Command to fish out the culprits, maintaining that if left unchecked, it may likely plunge the State and the country into another protest that might be worse than the 2020 EndSARS protest.
Addressing journalists in Osogbo on Wednesday, Lamina Kamiludeen Omotoyosi, the group’s Chairman urged the Federal Government to take swift action towards preventing unnecessary unrest in Osun State.
Referencing the atrocity allegedly committed by police in the State, Omotoyosi called on the IGP to order the Commissioner of Police in Osun, Wale Olokode to urgently bring the killers of late Prince Saheed Ajibola Olabomi to justice.
Omotoyosi, who lamented how the late Olabomi was gruesomely murdered by yet to be arrested policemen in the State on July 2021, he condemned the delay in the arrest and prosecution of the alleged killer police officers.
“Prince Saheed Ajibola Olabomi was gruesomely murdered by some police officers in the State in July, 2021. It is sad to note that justice has not been seen to have been done on the matter.
“It is saddening, worrisome, niggling and nerve-racking that the police have not allowed justice to take its course on the matter by bringing the perpetrators to justice.
“The officers, who killed Saheed Olabomi, despite the court order that the culprits should be presented at the court, are yet to be produced by the police.
“The court had sat twice and the Osun State Police Command has refused to present the alleged officers to the court. It was observed that because the perpetrators of this evil were not punished accordingly, some officers are carrying out illegal activities within the State unchecked.
“The Inspector General of Police has, on various occasions, warned policemen against checking of people’s phones and extorting money from them as such infringed on the fundamental rights of citizens.
“Despite the IGP’s warnings over checking of phones and laptops by police officers, the situation had worsened as it had become a regular occurrence along Osogbo-Ikirun, Osogbo-Ilesha, Osogbo-Ara junction Ikire-Gbongan, Dagbolu-Ikirun, Old Garage Area, Osogbo, Stadium-Oke-Onitea, Osogbo and Ilesha Garage.
“The group now calls for the following actions without delay so as to forestall future reoccurrence of these illegal acts:
“Immediate sack or transfer of Osun State Commissioner of Police before he puts the country on the track of another brutal protest.
“Inspector General of Police should ask the Osun State Command of Nigeria Police Force to obey the order of court on the gruesome murder of Prince Saheed Olabomi in July, 2021.
“Inspector-General of Police should instruct police officers in Osun State to neither check phones of people nor extort them and if caught in action, the officers should be sacked with immediate effect.”
Recall that the Aragbiji of Iragbiji, Oba Abdul-Rasheed Ayotunde Olabomi held a conference where he accused the Osun Police Command of complicity in the death of his cousin, Saheed Olabomi.
Recently, some officers of a police station in Ile Ife, Osun State forcefully collected N4,000 cash from a lady who reported a case of human trafficking and maltreatment of a girl child, after she and members of her family rescued the girl who slept in a bush for two days.
The lady alleged that officers still took her to a nearby P.O.S business center and asked her to transfer N1,000 from her account to the P.O.S, claiming that the amount she had to pay for reporting the case should be N5,000 or else, she would be detained if the money was not complete.
The lady did as they wanted under duress.
The Osun State Police Command is yet to respond to the allegations.
