Igangan: Court orders release of detained OPC members after three months

The Chief Magistrate Court 2, Iyaganku, Ibadan, in the Oyo State

capital, has ordered the release of three members of the Oodua Peoples

Congress, three months after their detention by the Oyo State Police

Command.

The OPC members – Awodele Adedigba, Dauda Kazeem and Hassan Ramon –

had been detained mid-March 2021 after they arrested a suspected

criminal reportedly from the Fulani ethnic stock, Iskilu Wakili.

Wakili had been accused of terrorising Igangan and other villages in

the Ibarapa area of Oyo State.

The OPC had handed over Wakili to the Oyo State Police Command but the

police subsequently detained three OPC members for allegedly burning

down Wakili’s house and killing an unknown woman in the process.

However, the OPC and one of its leaders, Gani Adams, had said the

murder and arson allegations were false, adding that it immediately

handed over Wakili and three of his accomplices to the police in

Igboora after their arrest.

The three detainees on Tuesday appeared before the magistrates’ court,

presided over by A.O. Amzat, and were discharged and acquitted after

the state’s Directorate of Public Prosecutions failed to prove to the

court that the OPC men were guilty as charged.

Counsel for the defendants, Akwarandu Adetoun, said the magistrate

struck out the case and ordered the release of the detainees.

The OPC Coordinator in Oyo State, Rotimi Olumo, also confirmed the

release of his men in a chat on Tuesday.

Before Wakili’s arrest, farmers and residents of Igangan, Ayete,

Kajola and neighbouring villages in Ibarapaland lived in perpetual

fear of Wakili who was accused of displacing them from their farms,

kidnapping their rich men and raping their women.

Igangan has been in the eye of the storm of late as marauding hoodlums

carry out successive attacks on the rustic agrarian village, creating

palpable panic and tension in residents of the area.

Earlier in June, no fewer than 17 persons were reportedly shot dead

when hoodlums invaded the town on motorcycles around 11pm and started

killing and destroying property, which continued until around 3am the

next day

(The PUNCH)