By FELIX MORDI
All known signs of a war situation are conspicuous in Ijebu-Ife, a small town in Ogbere Local Government Area of Ogun State, where the murder and burning of Oladokun Omolodun, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, ACP, in charge of Ijebu-Ode Area Command took place on Saturday 5 December. The hitherto bubbling atmosphere in the town has given way to complete desolation, as residents have fled for fear of reprisal attacks by the police.
This magazine reliably gathered that the police high command is taking the matter with the utmost seriousness and has ordered the arrest of as many members of the community as possible, to enable them apprehend those who committed the crime. This has led to the police laying siege to the town, firing tear-gas and, as reported by many people who fled the town, live bullets, killing several people.
The first police casualty was a man who was not aware of the killing of the police boss and challenged the police for firing tear-gas canisters in the town. He was promptly shot dead. One Sesan a.k.a. Blue Colour, who sold generating sets and repaired grinding machines and motorcycles, was said to have been brought out of a room and shot dead. Another, Baba White was killed by a stray bullet where he sat in his house, while a sick man simply known as Famous was burnt in his house.
Pandemonium reigned and, to escape the onslaught, many scampered into the forest while others managed to find their way into neighbouring towns. Some of those that ran into the forest suffered snake bites.
One man who had his mobile phone on him when he ran into the bush, was said to have called one of his relations and lamented his dire situation. “My situation is critical as I am in a thick forest. I don’t even know my exact location now and I have decided to remain static because, the more I might be straying further into the forest and might be killed by a wild animal,” he was quoted as saying.
More pathetic was the case of three kids who were abandoned by their parents in the melee and strayed onto the Sagamu-Benin express way. They were said to have been crushed to death by a vehicle. The tension also forced a pregnant woman who was running for safety alongside others into labour. She was abandoned to carry her cross by herself.
Omolodun, the slain police boss, was said to have intervened in a crisis rocking the town following the death of a deaf tailor, who was allegedly beaten by a member of the town’s vigilance group. The tailor, who was working on his customers’ clothes, was said to have put on his generating set and locked himself in his shop when suddenly, he heard a bang on the door. When he opened, he saw the vigilance group members, who accused him of flouting their order that nobody should be seen doing anything late at night. He was consequently fined N5,000, which he paid.
“It was after the payment of the N5,000 that one of the vigilance group members, led by Chief Samuel Adewale Oduyemi, aka Duduyemi, allegedly hit the deaf tailor with a charm. All these happened before the Eid-el Kabir.
“But a week after, which was a Friday, the tailor gave up the ghost. This infuriated the community who had for long been looking for an opportunity to confront the vigilance group whose overzealousness limitless. You can imagine, when there is a misunderstanding between a couple, they take it as their duty to wade in. At the end of the day, they exploit them by imposing on them a fine of N5,000,” a source said.
When the report of the tailor’s death filtered to the Area Commander, he suspected that there might be crisis and decided to go to the town that night and pleaded with the irate youths to maintain peace and assured them that the culprits would be brought to book. When he was leaving the scene at about 3:00am that Saturday morning, he told them that he would be coming back the following day.
At about 10:00am, when Omolodun left his quarters at Igbeba, nothing in his wildest imagination suggested that death was lying in wait for him at Ijebu-Ife. He was said to have got to neighbouring Ijebu-Imushin with three teams of armed policemen and an armoured personnel carrier, APC, when the driver of the APC told him there was not enough diesel in the APC.
Omolodun, it was gathered, gave money to the APC driver, telling him and other occupants of the carrier to join him at the scene of the crisis in Ijebu-Ife. He also told the three teams of policemen to go through the express road, while he went in a patrol vehicle with four other surbordinates. The strategy he employed was to give the impression that they had come for a settlement of the crisis, as the youths might misinterpret the presence of four patrol vehicles and an APC to mean a full-blown battle against them.
When Omolodun got to the town, he called the youths, who were protesting with the tailor’s corpse, for a talk. But they rebuffed his overtures and started raining stones on him before finally shooting him. An Assistant Superintendent was also shot in the hand. Working themselves into a frenzy, the mob dealt several matchet blows on Omolodun’s corpse before gathering some used tyres and setting it ablaze.
When the three other patrol vehicles arrived the scene, they put out the fire and conveyed Omolodun’s corpse to the mortuary at the General Hospital, Ijebu-Ode. All those killed by the police were also taken to the same mortuary at Omo-Owo street.
So heavy was the human traffic at the mortuary that, at a point, the attendants alerted the police that there were attempts by some unscrupulous elements to steal the Area Commander’s corpse. This led to the arrest of some people within the premises of the mortuary.
The state Commissioner of Police, Hashimu Argungu, has described the killing of Omolodun as the height of wickedness. “Imagine somebody who wanted peace to reign in that community at all cost, not knowing that they had an ulterior motive for him. For goodness sake, what was his offence? Should he have left them to take laws into their hands? In fact, this is sheer wickedness,” he said, promising to fish out the killers.
For Omolodun’s mother, Christiana, 70, the grief can not be described. She recalled that she was opposed to the slain police boss joining the police in the first place. She told TheNEWS: ‘‘Thank you for the word of encouragement but when you and others leave us, the sorrow and agony will be multiplied. What happened is a bad incident to recollect. When he was to join the Police Force I resisted. Then we were residing at No. 30, Hogan Bassey Crescent, Mushin, but one of our family friends encouraged me to allow him. He had served in many states and nothing bad happened. When he was schooling, he would help me to sell tuwo by carrying it on his head. He was always smiling and willing to help, even with the last kobo in his pocket. His younger sister, Mrs. Otitoju Agbeke Oyinlola, collapsed twice because of this incident.’’
The late Omolodun was born in Lagos in 1964. He graduated from the University of Lagos, Akoka in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and proceeded to the Nigeria Police Academy, Kano in 1988 after his youth service. Graduating in 1989, he was among the first set of Cadet Assistant Superintendents of Police, ASP, of the Academy. Omolodun was transferred from Sokoto State Police Command to Ogun as Area Commander in July 2008. A native of Awe in Oyo State, Omolodun, 45, was a cousin to Yeye Olufunke Daniel, wife of the Ogun State Governor.
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