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Preys of corruption: Police reward cops battling robbers with dismissal (1)
Against all odds, two ex-policemen, Shola Akano and Babatunde Glorious, have been relentlessly seeking justice against senior policemen accused of compromising a criminal case linked to a notorious armed robber identified simply as Ajadi in Kwara State.
However, the duo’s stance came at a cost – dismissal; since then, Akano and Glorious have been confronting the Herculean task of proving their innocence.
But in the daring quest to achieve their aim, they, unfortunately, steadily got pitched against the accused police officers, who, among others, had been reportedly using their influence in the police system to silence their outcry for justice.
However, these ex-policemen managed to fight their way up to the highest echelon of the Nigeria Police Force to achieve their aim of getting justice to no avail, they said they are resolute.
Amid the risks encountered, and the unexpected twists compounded by a series of deceitfully orchestrated plans the accused policemen executed to overturn their bid at getting justice, Akano and Glorious say they still believe that light exists at the end of the tunnel in their quest to ensure that truth prevails in their case against corrupt policemen responsible for their unjust dismissal from the NPF.
Short-lived victory
However, an effort by these determined ex-policemen at getting justice almost paid off in 2021; the effort came through a video story recorded by our correspondent and colleague, Olabode Olalekan.
In the video story released online by PUNCH Newspapers, Akano and Glorious, while briefly encapsulating their ordeal in the hands of corrupt senior policemen, appealed to the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, to grant them an audience regarding their case.
The video trended; it hit a home run, as the IGP ordered an investigation into the case. But the investigation was short-lived, as an uneasy silence engulfed the process. Why the investigation took such an unexpected turn, especially with the involvement of the IGP, remains a mystery to date.
The genesis
The episode that pitched Akano and Glorious against their former colleagues started sometime in December 2018.
Back then, the ex-policemen were working at the Public Complaints Bureau of the Kwara State Police Command.
According to Akano, an armed robbery victim, Abdulrazaq Omowunmi, who owned a Toyota Camry car with a Lagos number plate, reported a case of car theft to the state Police Public Relations Officer, Okesanmi Ajayi.
The 39-year-old said the PPRO reported the case to the former state Commissioner of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, who assigned the duo’s unit to investigate the case.
Akano said, “The PPRO, thereafter, wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department and the DC duly signed the investigation activities.
“Myself, Babatunde Glorious, and one other policeman were assigned to investigate the case and we tracked the stolen car to Keffi, Nasarawa State, where we arrested two suspects, John Opagbile and Charles Ogbutuyi.
“We also recovered Omowunmi’s car alongside other stolen vehicles and the military uniforms the suspects used for their operation. But things changed when we brought the suspects along with the stolen cars to the police command in Kwara State.”
Lagos, Nasarawa discovery
Akano said when they returned to the command, the suspects were subjected to further interrogation which led to the unravelling of two shocking discoveries.
He said during the interrogation, they were able to link the suspects’ criminal activities to a notorious criminal known as Ajadi, adding that they were also able to discover how the suspects made stolen vehicles untraceable for the owners.
He explained, “The suspects we arrested mostly targeted vehicles with Lagos number plates just like the number plate on Omowunmi’s car. After stealing his car, they took it to Nasarawa State. Through the investigation, we discovered that the vehicle licensing authority in Nigeria uses the same database to license vehicles in Nasarawa and Lagos states.
“So, vehicles with Lagos number plates, after being stolen, were taken to Keffi, Nasarawa, where compromised vehicle inspection officers at the licensing office will use the database to access the profile of the stolen Lagos registered vehicles and change it to an innocent victim’s profile or replace it with untraceable names and addresses.”
Akano said it was after he and his colleagues had recovered Omowunmi’s vehicle that he opened up to them that an innocent lecturer at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, was initially arrested instead of the suspects.
He explained that the mix-up happened because the lecturer’s profile popped up when the policemen Omowunmi initially contracted attempted to track his vehicle.
The ex-cop said, “We revisited the licensing office in Keffi, Nasarawa, to arrest the errant VIO officer linked to the crime but we could not get him. The head of the licensing office in Keffi also confirmed to us that Lagos and Nasarawa shared the same database.
“We were making significant progress but at the command, we were facing intense pressure from our superiors who offered us N8m to drop the case but we rejected it.
“Surprisingly, we received a signal from ACP Adegboyega Oyeleye requesting that the case along with the suspects and the stolen cars we recovered should be transferred to his office. We informed the PPRO and he informed the CP, who, through the PPRO, said we should ignore the signal.”
More woes
While still grappling with the unyielding pressure from superior policemen bent on ensuring they dropped the case, the Kwara State indigene said another strange development happened.
He explained that he wanted to feed Opagbile and Ogbutuyi who were detained in a cell at the SCID when he saw two officers, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Ali Abdukadri and Sergeant Tawa Ajibola, who were not part of the team investigating the case, interrogating the suspects without their knowledge.
Akano said he challenged them and later informed the PPRO, who told the CP that had been briefed about the senior policemen’s attempt to subvert justice in the case, and the CP gave an order for Abdulkadri and Ajibola to be detained.
After they were detained, Akano said their family members and a retired police officer visited the CP to beg him to release them, adding that while being questioned for interrogating the suspects, Abdulkadri said Ajadi, who, unknown to him, the investigation had revealed as the leader of the car theft syndicate, had been engaging them since they arrested the suspects in Nasarawa State.
The Kogi State indigene said, “During the deliberation, the retired police officer who intervened on their behalf said he owns a motor park and that he is in charge of some of Ajadi’s vehicles at the park. He said Ajadi would respond to him if he calls him and appealed to the CP to allow Abdukadri to come with two policemen to arrest Ajadi.”
Akano said he, another policeman and Abdulkadri went to the location the retired policeman said Ajadi would meet him.
When they got there, he explained that the plan by Abdukadri was that when Ajadi appeared, he would enter his car, ensure that he switched off the engine and signal to them to swoop in and make the arrest.
The ex-policeman said, “We had no choice but to follow his directive as he was a senior officer. When Ajadi came, Abdulkadri entered his vehicle, and we were waiting for his signal when Ajadi suddenly zoomed off with Abdulkadri. We chased after him but couldn’t meet up.
“When we later saw Abdulkadri, he said Ajadi pushed him down while driving in motion. That was how we could not arrest Ajadi and this same Abdulkadri, as of that period, later became the officer-in-charge of a police post built by Ajadi in the state.”
However, as the investigation was ongoing, our correspondent learnt from the ex-policemen that Egbetokun assigned another case involving a petition written by a woman, Fausat Abdullahi, and her son, Ridwan, to their unit for investigation and they were also assigned to handle the case.
Akano said, “It was a case of advance fee fraud and the investigation activities were duly signed by the DC SCID. During the investigation, we arrested the two suspects and brought them to Ilorin where the PPRO interviewed all the parties including the complainants and the suspects along with their lawyers.
“The suspects were later released on bail after they agreed to settle out of court but they refused to report back to the police. The PPRO is aware of everything, but as plans were on to re-arrest them, the next thing we received was a call from ACP Jephetah Shaonetimote, demanding we meet him at ACP Oyeleye’s office, and from there, we were arrested, detained and tortured in a cell for 15 days, and thereafter dismissed around March 2020 while still in the cell.
“They accused Glorious of converting one of the suspect’s phones to his personal use which was not true, and that we conspired with the complainants to extort money from the suspects, which was also not true, and the PPRO debunked this. We also have a voice recording to prove our innocence of the allegation. They (accused cops) also said we did an illegal investigation on the advance fee fraud case.”
Akano said the accused cops believed they never possessed duplicate of the documents auth