OLAKUNRIN: Police, Afenifere disagree over arrest of suspected killers

The Ondo State Police Command and the Yoruba Sociocultural organisation, Afenifere have disagreed over the alleged arrest of the suspected killers of the daughter of the leader of the organisation, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.

Fasoranti’s daughter, Mrs. Funke Olakunrin was murdered by suspected herdsmen in July last year at Kajola along Ore-Ijebu Ode expressway while on her way to Lagos after visiting her father in Akure, Ondo State.

The organisation’s spokesman, YINKA Odumakin had in a statement on Monday said four persons had been arrested in connection with the murder.

But this was however denied by spokesman of the Ondo State Police Command, Mr. Tee Leo-Ikoro, who said nothing of such has happened.

Leo-Ikoro said: “We will be happy to arrest the suspect, but as of today, the suspects are yet to be arrested by the Ondo State Command.”

Not satisfied with the denial from the police, Odumakin, in another statement on Tuesday, asked the media to ignore the denial of arrest statement by the police command.

He said: “Kindly disregard the statement credited to the Ondo Police PRO on the above subject.

“The regular Police in Ondo state has behaved so irresponsibly on the murder of Mrs Funke Olakunrin in the last 9 months.

“But for SARS that has now apprehended the suspected killers, we would have lost confidence in the organization.

“We were shocked that the regular police in Ondo released the car in which Mrs Olakunrin was killed to the family the day after the incident without any forensic.

“It was after Afenifere’s complaint to the police at the highest level that they came to take the car for forensic after seven days of people touching the car with no report to the family till date. They just asked them to come and take the car that they were done with it.

“They were not going to do any autopsy on her until we insisted one must be carried out.

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“They never deemed it necessary to brief the family once in the last 9 months.

“But the SARS who arrested the suspected killers formally briefed Papa Fasoranti last Saturday showing the responsible face of the police.

“The 94-year-old Pa Fasoranti who has been having sleepless nights in the last nine months has resumed normal sleep since SARS briefed him on the arrest.

“The driver who was on the wheel when Mrs Olakunrin was killed and went with the killers was treated with kid gloves by the regular police in Ondo but the SARS has taken him in yesterday after he failed to report for days despite repeated invitations.

“Once again we commend the SARS for the wonderful job they have done and we wait for thorough investigation that will lead to diligent prosecution.”

In his response to Odumakin’s Tuesday statement, Leo-Ikoro insisted that Odumakin, misunderstood the mission of the SARS personnel who visited the group’s leader.

Continuing, the police spokesman said the visit of the SARS operative was to seek the permission of the Afenifere leader to allow his driver to come and identify some persons arrested to see if they were the suspects in question.

“That does not mean the suspects who murdered his daughter had been arrested.

“We are investigating that case like you know, the SARS here and the federal SARS, both of them are working.

“Now the federal SARS came with some alleged suspects in that case; they needed identification, and you know that the driver of that late woman stays with the chief.

“What they did was to go there to see whether chief could allow them have that driver to identify those people, that was all.

“They have not arrested these people and say they are the ones who did that, it was to see whether the driver could identify any of them as being one of those who took part in that incident.”

He further added that Mr Odumakin might have misunderstood the submissions of the operatives to mean the arrest of the suspected killers.

“I have spoken to Yinka himself and I told him what happened and I also spoke to the SARS Commander in Ondo and he told me exactly what happened.

“There is no way they will make any arrest and the Commissioner of Police here will not know and there is no way we will make any arrest and the Inspector-General of Police will not know.

“We will be happy to make the arrest, but this one is not correct and there is nothing to hide”, Leo-Ikoro said.

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