Ola Ajayi
29 November 2008
Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Bashiru Azeez yesterday, revealed why four of his men were felled by bullets of the 14-man robbery gang that held the city hostage on Thursday.
This came just as unconfirmed reports claimed that another robbery took place at a bank in Apata area of the city. This forced all commercial banks in the area to close their gates against their customers.
While speaking with newsmen at the State Headquarters Eleyele, Ibadan after parading about 30 suspects, he explained that due to dearth of police kits to perform their duties, the policemen who were sent to confront the bandits went bare-chested.
Mr. Azeez said they did not have their life jackets otherwise known as bullet proof jackets and other necessary kits when they confronted the armed bandits. Corroborating the position of the state police boss, the Assistant Inspector of Police, Zone 11, Mr. Tunji Alapinni who came on a solidarity visit to the CP said that only 120 life jackets were given to 9,000 policemen in the state.
For effective policing in the state, Mr. Alapinni supported the move by the State Governor, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala who spoke through his Special Adviser on Public Communication, Prince Dotun Oyelade at the inauguration of new executive members of the State Correspondents' Chapel yesterday that his administration would make use of joint military_police patrol to smoke out bandits anywhere in the state.
Alapinni noted further that if the move would make the people of the city sleep with their eyes closed, it would be a good idea.
He said this just as the University College Hospital , Ibadan where victims of stray bullets were rushed to disclosed that the death toll had increased from six to eight.
When Saturday Vanguard spoke with the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Mr. Kunle Atinwore, he added that the number of injured people brought to the hospital had risen to 39.
He said, "we now have about 39 injured people with us. Besides, the six people that were brought in dead yesterday, we have lost another two people".
Alapinni regretted that the ability of the police to combat crime was being hampered by lack of adequate kits calling on men of good will and private sector to help the police.
He warned that it would be suicidal to leave policing in the hands of the government and police alone. According to him, more Armoured Personnel Carrier(APC) and life jackets should be given to police in the zone.
One of the suspects arrested in the gang, Mr. Godwin Itseki, an SSS 3 student of the Command Secondary School , Odogbo, Ibadan narrated that it was the Oodua Peoples Congress(OPC) that arrested and handed him to the police.
He confessed that the 13_man gang made away with large sum of foreign currency
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