There was pandemonium yesterday, at Kajola Community in Odigbo Local Council of Ondo State as youths mobilised to burn the police station in the area over the death of three people, including a community leader due to alleged police recklessness.
The angry mob thronged the Police Divisional Headquarters in Kajola in protest against the alleged killing of their kinsmen at the police checkpoints along Lagos/Benin Expressway on Saturday evening.
They dumped the three corpses at the Divisional Headquarters at Kajola, chanted songs to register their grievances and declared that they do not want to see policemen in the community again.
The victims, David Olowofeyekun, Gbenga Abayomi and Kola Akinduro, the head of Korede Village, were heading for home from their farms on a motorcycle.
An eyewitness, Funmi Olowogboye, said the police stopped the deceased at the checkpoint on Saturday evening and while trying to halt an oncoming hilux van, the driver maneuvered to escape the police and ran into the motorcycle.
Olowogboye said the hilux driver crushed the three victims on motorcycle where they parked on the instruction of the police officers, who wanted to collect money from them and they died on the spot.
The witness and other protesters, who spoke to newsmen at the police station yesterday, identified a notorious police officer, popularly called Major, as the ring-leader of the extortionist squad on the highway and the community at large.
They demanded that officer Major be transferred out of the community, revealing that he has spent over 17 years in the area without transfer because of atrocities he commits in the area to make more money.
It took the prompt intervention of the Police Commissioner, Mr. Oyediran, who arrived the town before 8:00am yesterday, Amotekun Corps and other security agencies, to calm frayed nerves. They also appealed to angry youths for peace
The community leader, Chief Oloruntobi Maiyegun, who spoke with journalists on phone, recounted that he had to intervene the moment he heard that youths were mobilising to burn the police station.
Maiyegun, who was presently out of town to Delta State, said he mobilised Amotekun and other security agencies to the scene immediately to forestall break down of law and order.
He enjoined the residents not to take law into their hands. Also, the Chairman of Odigbo Council, Mrs. Margaret Akinsuroju, said she had to mobilise the police, immediately she heard of the incident to ensure that peace is maintained and there was no breakdown of law and order.
She noted that there were two versions of the incident as the police narrated that they were killed by a hit-and-run driver and they tried to pursue the vehicle
MEANWHILE, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mrs, Funmilayo Odunlami, stated that the deceased flouted the traffic law and incidentally had an accident.
“It was not due to the recklessness of the police officers, they took one way and had an accident. So there was no way the police could be reckless in a situation, whereby there is a route to take and they took another one.
“Of course it was an oncoming vehicle that they collided with and died, it was not police recklessness,” she claimed.
