Family of Late Mogaji Ara-Oyo Accuses Kwara Police of Shielding Killers of Their Father…seeks IGP intervention on correcting false tagging of the deceased a kidnapper
The family of the late Abdulsalami Soliu Mogaji of the Araoyo family Omoda of, Ilorin, the Kwara State, capital has accused the Kwara state police command of shielding the killers of their family held and also falsely tagging him as a kidnapper to cover the heinous crime.
Speaking to Sobi FM’s Dare Akogun who paid a visit to the family compound in Omoda area of Ilorin wife of the deceased Funmilayo Soliu Abdulsalam, amidst intermittent sobs told our reporter that the police wanted to oppress the family because they see us poor people.
According to her “on September 13, 2022 my husband went to the Government House to see the governor according to him, the governor requested a meeting with all the Mogaji’s of the Ilorin Emirate. After the meeting, he left and informed us about his movement; which he always did that, he is going to see his friend, Mogaji Alaase who owns a block industry somewhere along the Oko olowo expressway. I was not around on that day, as I made a trip to Lagos.
“According to one of the sons of his friend who was with him when the incident happened, my late husband around 9:00pm told his friend that he would be leaving because his wife was not at home. Then, his friend requested that my husband should give his three children a ride home.
“My husband and one of the children that sat in the front were killed. I see this as total oppression. They used the powers they have to oppress us. They just want to drag his name in the mud and spoil his reputation.
“This is a man that is easy going person he rarely fights anyone; he is gentle to the core and has no savings at all when he died. Even his share of the money they said the governor gave them after the meeting was given to us after the burial.
“Since his death, the whole family has been traumatized and living in squalor, we don’t have anyone except God and we believe justice will be done in this matter, “she lamented.
One of the sons of the deceased Kehinde Abdulganiyu Abdulsalam said when the incident happened, he received a call around 12:30 am that his father has been killed and the corpse has been taken to the Shao police station.
“When we get to Shao Police station, we met the DPO one SP Akpan, and he told us that from their investigations our dad was a kidnapper and he showed some amount of money and bottles of hot drinks, but we vehemently argued with the DPO and told him point blank that our dad was not a kidnapper.
“We then requested for his body so that we can bury him according to Islamic rites, but the police DPO said if we agree that our father is a kidnapper they will release the body to us, we said no that is not possible. The DPO now said they have referred the case to the headquarters and the body deposited at the morgue of University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital.
“Before we left Shao that day people that are gathered at the station were stoning us with stones and our vehicles destroyed, calling us family of kidnappers, it was the police that took us in their vehicles and they escorted us to the Sobi barracks before we came home and plan the next line of action.
“We also saw on Facebook a post by the PRO of Kwara Police Command Ajayi Okasanmi, that the police in the state rescued some kidnapped victims and killed two of the kidnappers while two others escaped with the pictures of our father and the boy with him that was killed.
“So, the following day we went to the Police headquarters and we met the newly posted CP Paul Odama who invited us into his office with the DPO Shao Division who still maintained that our father was a kidnapper, and he came to the command with money, locally made gun bullets and some charms which he said his boys recovered from deceased,” he said.
He stated that he nearly went insane because of the trauma the incident has caused.
“The following day on Friday we went back to the headquarters and we met a senior officer known to us in the community and we explained the incident to him, and immediately he went to the CP office and came back few minutes later with an instruction to the DPO that the body should be released to us for burial.
Kehinde revealed that the following Sunday the police invited them again, the kidnapped victims and their family and some members of vigilante, where questions were asked from the victims if they can recognize anyone from the people from our side and they said no.
“The wife that was kidnapped said the people that kidnapped them were middle aged men not old nor young and they were speaking Hausa language.
“The Commissioner of police thereafter directed the Shao Divisional Police Officer, to produce the vigilantes with which he claimed carried out the rescue operation that led to the death of the deceased.
He said that the following Tuesday which was the day of the 8 days prayer for the late mogaji was when they were told that Mogaji Alasee was arraigned that day in court and remanded in prison after visiting the Commissioner of Police Paul Odama.
“Baba Mogaji was with us that Tuesday morning and he told us he was going to the police headquarters that the Commissioner of Police asked him to come and identify some vigilantes who have been invited by the police regarding the issue of the death of our father.
“This particular turn of event came as a shock to us because we thought the police commissioner is trying to help us to find the killers of our fathers, but it turned out the police are trying to hide something, because I don’t understand,” he narrated.
Kehinde said since that day his work has been affected and has contemplated suicide as he is finding it difficult to feed his family as they always call him the son of a kidnapper.
Another son of the deceased Wakil Abdulsalam while talking about the incident, said he has followed his father on many occasions to the area he was killed.
“I had gone there with him on several occasions too and my dad never kept secrets from us.
“It was shocking to hear about his death because we didn’t see it coming. Our dad never really kept late nights out, so, we were surprised to realize that at 11pm, dad wasn’t home yet.
On the morning of Wednesday, September 14, 2022, our attention was drawn to what was posted online by the police, alleging that our dad was a kidnapper. This was posted on the Internet by the Police Public Relations Officer in Kwara State, Okasanmi Ajayi, alleging that the police killed two kidnappers and two ran away.
“That was what he posted. He said that it was four bandits/kidnappers, two were killed and two escaped into the jungle. The children of his friend (Alaase) that escaped would later narrate their ordeal and explain all that happened that our dad was killed by the vigilante known to the police, but tagged him a kidnapper.
He said, the late Mogaji left the block industry at about 9pm that day with the three boys.
“According to the boys, they noticed that a car was trailing them and when they drew the attention of my dad to it, he told them that the car might just be going its way, not really trailing them until the car suddenly overtook and intercepted them.
“At that point, my dad engaged the reverse gear quickly but he ran into a heap of sand. My dad was always driving with just one hand; he started driving like that after he suffered a paralysis in his left hand about 34 years ago. I’m quite sure that if it were not for the paralysis on his other arm, he wouldn’t have died the way he did because he was a very good driver.
“After hitting the heap of sand, he came down of the car to ask what the matter was and that was how the assailants shot him with local bullets on his chest. It was surprising that the police said what they said.
The immediate junior brother of the deceased Alhaji Babatunde Raji Mogaji said the whole incident is like a calculated attempt by the police to tarnish the image of their family, a situation which he says has changed the course of his life.
Since the incident the family has been living in sorrow, because I have not experienced such thing ever in my life.
“We know we don’t have any powers, but we are seeking justice on this matter, we are calling on the government to ensure the police produce the killers of our father, let justice prevails on this matter because we don’t have anyone to call upon, he said.
He is an easy-going person and he doesn’t fight anyone, throughout his life time he hardly gets into any argument with anyone, he never keeps late night. He is a rallying point within the family and in the community at large.
Babatunde added that since the incident happened his life and that of the family member has changed because the name built by their fore bearers to the time of the murdered mogaji has been damaged without repair.
“We have not heard anything from the police since the body was released to us, even at the court where his friend is being tried there has never been a day the name of my brother (Mogaji Ara oyo) mentioned related to any crime whatsoever.
“We are appealing to the Federal government to compel the Inspector General of Police Alkali Baba Usman to direct the Kwara state police command to carry out a thorough investigation and reveal the perpetrators of this acts, starting from the DPO Shao Division SP Nelson Akpan,” he said.
When contacted the Public Relations Officer of the Kwara Command Ajayi Okasanmi, said the case referred to court the following day the incident happened and some suspects were charged to court, and as such he can’t comment on the matter again.
He however confirmed that the police had an encounter with suspected kidnapper on September 13, 2022 where some kidnapped were rescued and some kidnappers were killed in the fire exchange. https://thecrierng.com/family-of-late-mogaji-ara-oyo-accuses-kwara-police-of-shielding-killers-of-their-father/ 
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