By Henry Odeh
As part of sustained efforts to rid Oyo state of crime and criminality, the Oyo State Comssioner of Police, CP Ngozi Onadeko, has again, paraded cultists arrested by officers of the state command following an intelligence about initiation activities of suspected cult group.
This is coming barely 48 hours after the Oyo State command paraded a 36 year old bank official of one of the new generation banks for defrauding a customer of the bank the sum of N10 million (ten million naira).
CP Onadeko who commended the Atiba Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Atiba Division, for the swift intelligence sharing leading to the arrest of the cultists said the suspect will soon be charged to court.
“Upon information about some cultists gathering to do their handling over and also to do their initiation of some new members, we swung into action and nine of them were arrested they have been interrogated and confessed to the crime.
“They have confessed that they are all members of Aye Confraternity, some of them are going for initiation while some of them are going to hand over to the new executives.
“So I will still continue to enjoy parents and guardians to talk to their wards, talk to their children, they should know what it is they are doing, like those ones arrested now, they are parent thought they were in school, but you can see what they have ended up doing.
“When they were arrested some of their weapons recovered from them are locally made gun, machete, among other dangerous weapons were recovered from them.
“At times some of them also engage in robbery so, the Police will continue doing our duties to make sure that Oyo State is safe and secured,” CP Onadeko said.
One of the suspects
Ayinde Badmus, 23 years old, said “I was in Oyo Town to greet my friend, but I didn’t know they were having a handing over night or something like that, I just went there to greet my friends.
“I’m a student of Poly Ibadan, it’s like my friend is among those cultists, as we are together talking together Amotekun people just came around and arrested us, the locally made gun that was recovered from me is not my own, it belongs to my friend that is currently at large, he’s the one that brought the gun beside me and we were talking before the Amotekun officers come around.
“I’m not the owner of the gun, we have gone to his house but he has ran away,” the suspect explained.
Another Suspect, Olamide Joshua, stated “I’m 21 years old. I didn’t know what happened, I’m not a member of Eye Confraternity, I’m a cultist but I’m not a Pirate so, I don’t know what really happened there.
“I was in my room and they came the Police and Amotekun came to arrest me, I was not at the scene, though I’m a new member of pirate, I school at Emmanuel College of Education Alayande, I was just initiated last two months,” he said.
Some of the weapons recovered from the suspected cultists include two locally made guns, three cartridges, one cutlass, and two axes.
The CP, Onadeko, however, assured that the state police command will not rest on its oars in the fight against crime and criminality in the state urging parents and guardian to pay closer attention to the social wellbeing of their children and wards stressing that the police will be decisive in dealing with any unscrupulous elements within the state.
