Wakili: After three months in Police custody, Court frees OPC members

The Magistrate Court 2, sitting in Iyaganku, Ibadan, has ordered the release of the three members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) detained by the Oyo State Police Command.

The OPC members – Awodele Adedigba, Dauda Kazeem and Hassan Ramon – had been in detention since March, after they arrested alleged Fulani warlord, Iskilu Wakili.

Wakili had been accused of terrorising Igangan and its environs, in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.

The OPC had handed over Wakili to the Oyo State Police Command but the Police subsequently detained three members of the group 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 members were guilty of the offence they were allowed to have committed.

Counsel for the defendants, Akwarandu Adetoun, told journalists that 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 with The Punch on Tuesday.

Before Wakili’s arrest, farmers and residents of Igangan, Ayete, Kajola and neighbouring villages in lived in 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 as marauders launch successive attacks on the town, creating panic and tension among residents of the area.