The police in Kwara State dismissed
yesterday a widespread rumour in Ilorin, the state capital, about the involvement
of some policemen in ritual activities in the state.
Commissioner of police for the
state, Lawan Ado, while addressing newsmen on the development said the rumour,
which started over the weekend, had continued to spread despite initial efforts
by the command to curtail it.
“We feel it is worrisome because people
have been calling us from across the world over the issue”, he said adding that
the management of the command was also investigating its personnel at the
Adewole Division where the supposed ritual transaction was alleged to have taken
place.
The rumour was that policemen in
Adewole Division, an elite are of the metropolis, usually arrest people for
late hour movement at as from 8.00pm and then take them to ritual killers for as
much as N80,000 per head.
The rumour claimed that some of the culprits had been
arrested after a face-off with military men whose personnel had been mistakenly
arrested by the ritual merchants.
But Ado said there was no arrest of
any military personnel, and neither was there any brawl between the police and
military men as alleged, pointing out that the only record of interaction between
the police and the military around the time in question in the area was when a
military officer came to report a case of breach of trust.
While condemning the development,
Ado said, “on our part we are putting a lot of searchlight on the division and
its personnel ad we will not hide anything but so far we have not found
anything. We are doing our very best in this state and we will investigate any
allegation you bright to us so we want to call on all residents that any good
Samaritan who has any information to come forward to us. Anyone who has someone
who has been arrested or missing around that time or that are should come to
us.
“We want to debunk the rumour as
pure mischief and falsehood because we
have done proper investigation and found nothing of such and we don’t it to
continue trending on the social media”.
Text of the rumour which Ado read
to journalists alleged as follows:” E be like say we need to be careful in
Ilorin. Policemen of Adewole Division are now agents of ritualists. They arrest
people for late hour movement as from 8pm and take them to the ritualists for
N80k per head. Some of them have been arrested. Let us pray for justice to reign.
Pls spread this information until it gets to d appropriate quarters. The state
of harmony seems not to be any more.”
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