Ibadan-based law firm, Afe Babalola &Co. has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu over the unlawful arrest, detention and death of one Kehinde Omotosho on July 21, 2020.
OYOINSIGHT.COM recalls that Kehinde died while in custody of the police officers attached to the Anti-Cultism Unit of the Oyo State Criminal Investigation Department, (CID) Iyaganku, Ibadan.
According to the petition, which was signed on behalf of the law firm by Oluwashina Ogunbade, the police officers did not tell the deceased and one Mr. Jelili Razaq, who was arrested alongside him, the reason of their arrest, as prescribed by the law.
He noted that the arrest of the two individuals is also in flagrant disregard of the clear provision of Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 which provides that:
‘A person shall not be arrested in place of a suspect’
“From this express provision, the arrest and detention of the deceased and Mr. Jelili Razaq in the place of Mr. Kabiru is clearly illegal,” the petition said.
Ogungbade described the deceased as an honest businessman and a responsible family man who, like every law-abiding citizen of this country, expected protection from the state and did not under any circumstance deserve to have his liberty taken away without regard to the clear provisions of the law, adding that his seven children on account of his unjustifiable arrest, detention and death, have now been been left without a father and breadwinner.
Ogungbade called on the IG to set up an investigation into the allegations contained in the petition.
