Ogun police caution residents against jungle justice as mob burn suspected ritualists

Etim Ekpimah

The Ogun State Police Command has warned residents against taking the law into their hands as some irate youths invaded the police cell, brought out the suspected ritualists.

The suspects, Idowu Afolabi and Johnson Adebiyi were incinerated in front of the Oja-Odan divisional headquarters in the Yewa-North Local Government Area.

It was learnt that the suspects were apprehended by some youths with fresh human parts and were then handed over to the policemen at Oja Odan divisional headquarters by some residents where they were detained.

The Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, described the action of the angry crowd as barbaric and unlawful and warned that a repeat of such an incident would spell doom on all the people that would be found to be involved in it.

A statement signed on behalf of the command by the Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi on Sunday, read partly: “While the suspects were being interrogated in the station, some unscrupulous elements went and mobilized a large number of people who invaded the station aggressively, overwhelmed the police personnel on duty and subsequently hijacked the suspects, beat them to death and set their corpses ablaze.

“In view of the incident, the command wishes to sound a note of warning to those who are always in the habit of taking laws into their hands to desist from such uncivilized behaviour as the command will henceforth be dealing with whoever carried out such action in the most decisive manner.

“A suspect remains a suspect until he/she is convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction no matter how grievous the crime he suspected to have committed might be.”

Meanwhile, the CP has ordered a full-scale investigation into the incident with the view to bringing to justice those who participated in carrying out the barbaric and unlawful killing of the suspects.

The CP appealed to members of the public to have confidence in the nation’s criminal justice system and desist from self-help as such is alien to the law of the land.