Family demands justice
Joy Anyim
The family of a 47-year-old electrician, Olaoluwa Bolarinwa, has accused the police of killing him while in their custody.
According to wife of the deceased, Blessing Bolarinwa, her husband was arrested on March 26, 2020, at Ekotedo Iya Olobe, Ibadan, along with his nephew, Oreoluwa Abiona, by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Special Tactical Squad (IGPSTS), located at Itele area of Ayobo, Lagos State.
While Oreoluwa was granted bail after parting with N10, 000, the policemen continued to detain Olaoluwa.
A few weeks after Olaoluwa’s arrest, family members were shocked to hear that he was dead.
According to the grieving wife, the Unit, headed by a woman Police, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Toyin Omosebi, allegedly tortured Olaoluwa to death.
The accusation was made after the policemen attached to IGPSTS denied knowing Olaoluwa and then weeks later, told the family that he died three days after his arrest. The Unit has also allegedly refused to disclose how the suspect died.
Narrating how her husband was arrested, Blessing said: “The policemen stormed our compound that fateful day asking for one ‘Olu.’ It was Olaoluwa that attended to them. He told them there was nobody called ‘Olu,’ that his own name was Laolu.
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“We suggested they should call the phone number of the ‘Olu.’ They saw a friend of mine and asked her the whereabouts of her husband, she replied that she was not married.
“They asked Olaoluwa, the owner of a particular shop there, he replied that it belonged to his wife. They started beating him. They went into our apartment and carried two televisions and a decoder. They collected my phone, those of my child, friend and customer.”
She said the following day, the Investigating Police Officer (IPO), Yomi a.k.a System Ijaya, called her to come and bail Oreoluwa. When she got there, she wanted to bail her husband, but System refused.
She said, “He told me that once they got the suspect they were looking for, they would release my husband. He told me that my husband had not committed any crime, only his friends.
“On Monday, my husband’s people went to the station and discovered he had been moved.”
Elder brother of the deceased, Adeshina Boyo, called on the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to investigate the matter, and fish out the killers of their brother.
Boyo said his family members will not rest until IG’s operatives tell them how Olaoluwa died in their custody.
He said the painful aspect of their ordeal was when he finally met the woman in charge of the Unit, who told him that Olaoluwa was arrested for armed robbery.
While arguing that there was no way Olaoluwa could have been involved in robbery, Boyo added that the deceased was not even taken to court before he was convicted and pronounced an armed robber.
He said that the commander and her men even refused to release Olaoluwa’s remains for proper burial.
Boyo narrated, “They called my brother an armed robber even without taking him to court. Nigerians should stand up and fight for us.
“My brother’s death is a case of extrajudicial killing. He was murdered! My brother was not a thief and neither was he an armed robber. My brother was a community leader in his community and everyone knew him.”
Boyo explained that Olaoluwa and Oreoluwa were arrested and taken to Mokola Police Station in Ibadan, where Oreoluwa was released the following day after paying N10,000 for bail.
He said that they later went to Mokola Police Station, thinking they could facilitate the release of Olaoluwa, but discovered he had been moved
“It was from the incident register at Mokola Police Station, that we got to know that Olaoluwa and others were moved to Obada Police Station, which is some kilometres from Sango-Ota, Ogun State.
“The following Saturday, I went to Obada Police Station, where I was told that they didn’t have such a person in their custody.
“ We were directed to the Ogun State Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department (SCIID), Eleweran.
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“When we got there, we were directed to IGPSTS Unit. With the help of my sister, an army officer, who had worked in Abuja, we found out that the policemen were truly from IGPSTS in Lagos,” he said.
Boyo and other family members remembered that when Oreoluwa was granted bail, the IPO gave him his phone number.
Boyo said, “We called the phone number and the Truecaller showed, ‘System.’ But immediately we asked him about Olaoluwa, he cut the call. Our brother-in-law at Defence House also called System; he asked us to meet him at Police Headquarters, Obalende, Lagos State. When we got to Obalende and called him, he told us that he was on his way to Abuja.
“He promised to call my brother-in-law, to give details of the offence Olaoluwa committed. After that he stopped picking my brother-in-law’s calls.
“One day, I called him and he picked, I asked him of my brother, he said that he was a tracker and arrested Olaoluwa in order to use him to track some suspects.
“He promised that my brother would soon be released. After four weeks, I went to their office at Ayobo.
“The policemen we met there denied knowing any policeman called System. They also said there was no case of any Olaoluwa there.
“My sister and I went back the following week and met another policeman, who told us that all suspects and their IPOs had been moved to Abuja.
“He asked us to go home and wait until after the lockdown. We went back there the following week, making it six weeks that my brother had been arrested.
“When we got there, they quarreled with us because we asked for their phone contacts. We just felt that rather than going there from Lagos Island every time, we should just call them to know when their commander would be around so that we could go there to see her. They had earlier told us that she had been on sickbed for four days.”
Speaking further on their suspicion and how the family got to know something wasn’t right about the death of their brother, Boyo said: “On Friday, I went back there with my sister. They brought out their register; I was behind the policeman that brought out the register. I noticed that the cases System alone was handling were many.
“Almost all the suspects had System Ijaya as their IPO. This was the same name that those policemen had repeatedly denied knowing.
“They asked me to call System; they spoke with him and then they allowed us to see the commander.
“The commander asked me if Olaoluwa had been arrested before, I said no. She asked me if I knew he was an armed robber, I told her it was not possible! Our family had sold sachet water, Kola nut, newspapers and other things in Ibadan to survive.
“Our family believes in handwork. I told her that we don’t steal, let alone to do robbery.
“I thought they went to bring Olaoluwa, instead they brought out four guys. The first guy, who claimed to know Olaoluwa, said Olaoluwa was their financier and that he was in charge of providing guns for them during operations. I just looked at him.
“We pay Olaoluwa children’s school fees. He had no money, nothing! When the suspect was asked how many times Olaoluwa had gone on operation with them, he paused.
“The commander shouted at him, he then said that they went to steal generator in a factory. I said wow that was not armed robbery if that truly happened.
“The commander told us that Olaoluwa died on the third day after his arrest. She and her men had forgotten that two weeks after Olaoluwa’s arrest, they gave him phone to speak with his wife.
“They are now saying that he died three days after his arrest. We asked them to release his corpse to us, but the commander said that because Olaoluwa was an armed robber, they wouldn’t release his corpse.
“The woman even said that she was not supposed to attend to us, that she was supposed to be at a meeting, and that people at the meeting had been calling her. She didn’t give us opportunity to ask her how our brother died.”
