Kwara Monarch faults police on Oreke-Okegbo killings, abduction
* Says incident occured in Oreke-Oke, not Oreke-Okegbo
Stephen Olufemi Oni, Ilorin
The traditional ruler of Oreke-Okegbo community in the Ifelodun local government area of Kwara State, Oba Sunday Adefila, has debunked police report that the killing of two mobile policemen and abduction of two others, including a Chinese national and a Nigerian miner, by gunmen occured at a mining site in Oreke-Okegbo community, saying the incident actually occured in a sister community called Oreke-Oke.
According to the traditional ruler, in a phone chat with our Correspondent, “the incident did not occur in Oreke-Okegbo as claimed by the police, but in Oreke-Oke” hence, the confusion about the actual location of the incident.
Oba Sunday Adefila, a former General Manager of the Kwara State Environmental Protection Agency (KWEPA), claimed that there is no mining facility in his Oreke-Okegbo community, adding that “the incident happened at Oreke-Oke as there are two Orekes in the area.
It would be recalled that the tragic incident which led to the killing of two mobile policemen on protective assignment and abduction of two others including a Chinese national and a Nigerian miner, occurred at a mining site located in Oreke-Oke.
While the rifles of the deceased police officers were carted away by the gunmen, two others were also abducted with ransom placed on their heads for their freedom by their abductors.
Informed police sources disclosed that the abductors have demanded N1b for the release of the two captives.
The traditional ruler decried the dastardly incident, asking: “What is going on in this country? The incident was not in Oreke-Okegbo, no mining site is situated in my community and as the Kabiyesi of Oreke-Okegbo community, I debunk the story in as much as we have two Orekes, and my own is Oreke-Okegbo.”
He called on the police command to retract the story in order to disabuse the mind of the public on the report, as it did not happen in his domain.
Oba Sunday, said he has been tormented by calls from within and outside the country following the report which has gone viral.
Efforts to reach the spokesperson of the state police command, SP Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi, on Sunday, were unsuccessful.