By Timothy Agbor, Osogbo
A woman, Mrs Oluwatoyin Adetona has narrated how her two children were crushed to death by a drunk policeman.
Mrs Adetona, in her petition before the Osun Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, Human Rights Violations and Related Extra Judicial Killings explained that the police officer simply identified as Agada killed her two children with an armoured tank.
She said the incident happened in front of her house at D112, Egbe Idi Ilesa in 2015.
The petitioner explained that the incident happened on a Sunday while they were preparing to go to church.
The woman, while sobbing profusely, disclosed that she was in the bathroom when she heard a noise, adding that by the time she came out, she passed out after sighting the crushed bodies of her kids.
According to her, she couldn’t recall what happened anymore because she lost her memory upon sighting her children dead.
She stressed further that she spent one month and three days at Wesley Guild Hospital in Ilesa before she regained consciousness.
Upon her return from the hospital, the petitioner said an eyewitness told her that the officer who drove the Armoured Tank named Agada was said to have been drunk and that a bottle of beer he drank was found in the vehicle after the incident.
Meanwhile, counsel to the Police, F. B. Osei informed the panel that the said case had been resolved because the officer who committed the crime had since been dismissed from the Police Force and the case had been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice for prosecution.
But the petitioner said she was aware the officer had been dismissed but she is not aware that he has been tried in any court of law.
Counsel to the Petitioner, Abdulfatai Abdulsalam however contradicted Osei that even though it is true that the officer had been dismissed, the Ministry of Justice has not taken the necessary steps to prosecute the offender since then.
“As far as I know, the case does not exist in any court again”, he said.
He added that at a certain point, a case was filed at the Hight Court in Ilesa by the ministry but no hearing was done since then.
Chairman of the panel, Akin Oladimeji then directed that the Secretary of the Panel, Kemi Bello who is also the Director of Public Prosecution, at the Osun State Ministry of Justice to look into the matter to understand why the case was not taken to court.
The case was then adjourned till February 19 2021.
