The Chief Magistrate Court 2, Iyaganku, Ibadan, in the Oyo State capital, yesterday, ordered the release of three members of the Oodua Peoples\u2019 Congress (OPC), three months after their detention by the Oyo State Police Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OPC members \u2013 Awodele Adedigba, Dauda Kazeem and Hassan Ramon \u2013 had been detained mid-March, 2021, after they arrested a suspected criminal reportedly from the Fulani ethnic stock, Iskilu Wakili.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wakili had been accused of terrorising Igangan and other villages in the Ibarapa area of Oyo State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s house and killing an unknown woman in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the OPC and one of its leaders, Gani Adams, had said that 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three detainees, yesterday, appeared before the magistrates\u2019 court, presided over by A.O. Amzat, and were discharged and acquitted after the state\u2019s Directorate of Public Prosecutions failed to prove to the court that the OPC men were guilty as charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Counsel for the defendants, Akwarandu Adetoun, said that the magistrate struck out the case and ordered the release of the detainees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OPC Coordinator in Oyo State, Rotimi Olumo, also confirmed the release of his men in a chat with newsmen, yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Wakili\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chief Magistrate Court 2, Iyaganku, Ibadan, in the Oyo State capital, yesterday, ordered the release of three members of the Oodua Peoples\u2019 Congress (OPC), three months after their detention by the Oyo State Police Command. The OPC members \u2013 Awodele Adedigba, Dauda Kazeem and Hassan Ramon \u2013 had been detained mid-March, 2021, after they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/267201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}