The Ogun State Commissioner of Police (CP), Lanre Bankole, has ordered a full scale investigation into the circumstances leading to the killing, Saturday, of two ritual suspects, in Oja Odan divisional headquarters
The investigations, according to a statement signed Sunday by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi is aimed at bringing to justice, those who participated in carrying out the “barbaric and unlawful killing” of the suspects.
The statement warned the general public against taking laws into their hands and “jungle justice”, describing such acts as “barbaric and unlawful”, but which will no longer be tolerated.
The CP’s directive follows an unlawful killing and setting ablaze of two suspected ritualists in Oja Odan area of Ogun state Saturday February 12, 2022.
Oyeyemi narrated that in the early hours of Saturday 12th of February 2022, two suspected ritualists were arrested and brought to Oja Odan divisional headquarters by some vigilant and law abiding members of the public, with allegation that a fresh human head concealed in a sack was seen with them.
The statement related further: “While the suspects were been interrogated in the station, some unscrupulous elements went and mobilized large number of people who invaded the station aggressively, overwhelmed the police personnel on duty and subsequently hijacked the suspects, beaten them to death and set their corpses ablaze”.
Following the ugly development, the command warned “those who are always in the habit of taking laws into their hands to desist from such uncivilized behavior as the command will henceforth be dealing with whoever carried out such action in the most decisive manner”.
Oyeyemi insisted that a suspect remains so, until he/she is convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction, no matter how grevious the crime he might have committed, adding that it is only the court that has the power to impose punishment on anyone found guilty of a crime, not an individual or group of people.
Meanwhile, the State’s CP has appealed to members of the public to have confidence in the nation criminal justice system and desist from self help as such he noted, is alien to the law of the land.
