After about seven months of delay or what the police call continued investigation, the police high command confided in the lead prosecution counsel and Attorney General of Kwara State and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN Kamaldeen Ajibade, that the prime suspect in the April 5, 2018 robbery and killing of over 30 residents of Offa had died. The prime suspect who is a former police officer, Michael Adikwu was said to have led the robbery incident which had many other suspects as part of the crime. The Ilorin High Court was not told when and how the suspect died, or when he died.
This kind of news is very disheartening. This is so because a prime suspect is usually the person with more knowledge about an incident. He may have been the organizer and the trainer of the gang of robbers. He may also have been the man that knew their would be targets. He may have been the chief amourer for the gang. These are very vital factors that could lead to disentangling how the robbery was planned, the involvement level of each of the gang members and who brought or took what from the heist. Now that vital part of the puzzle is gone. Whatever may have been his statement to the police has no way of collaboration. Other suspects may decide to change their statements too to heap all the blames on the dead suspect.
More importantly, the lead suspect was said to have testified that he was the one that brought the ammunition and arms used for the operation. This runs contrary to what the police has paraded since they found a way to rope in the President of the Senate and the Governor of Kwara state respectively in the dastardly act. Now there is nobody to impeach the castle made of sand which the police has built as a measure of their own investigation. This matter is sordid and we align with the call by the Senate for the president to set up a judicial panel of inquiry to investigate the circumstances that led to the death of Adikwu. It appears the man may have been murdered in cold blood in police facilities. This is to cover up the conspiracy they had weaved around the senate president during the course of investigations
The suspects, namely Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salaudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran are the remaining five suspects still alive. As a result of the absence of the mastermind of the robbery, the matter in court was adjourned. This is so because on the charge sheet there were six names in there, but the court was presented with five. The court will have to strike out Adikwu’s name so that the case can go on. The president of the senate had reacted to this news reminding the public that he had alerted the nation on the dead of the principal suspect in police custody in what may have been a premeditated murder.
Although the police said their former staff “just slumped and died”, the trouble there is that we have not being told when this incident occurred. Did the death occur just before the court arraignment or during last week or week before? If the death did not happen this month, when did it happen. If it happened around the time that the senate president and this newspaper reported it, why then did it take the police this long to bring the fact to the people they serve. Aside from the shady turn the whole episode has taken does this not support the suspicion that the police authorities simply hold the Nigerian people in disrespect? Even more they hold their commander-in-chief with disdain.
The whole matter smacks of indiscipline by the police. So apart from demanding that a judicial panel be constituted, it is important that the Police Service Commission is made to play its supervisory role over this matter. Suspects cannot die in detention and a post mortem is not conducted and the result made public. We are not a banana republic. This matter must not be swept under the carpet.
