The proverbial long arm of the law has scored another big hit, with the arrest, diligent prosecution and sentencing of the robbers who invaded Offa town in Kwara State on April 5, 2018.
It was a bank robbery unlike no other. Beyond the use of explosives to burst bank vaults, the gangsters embarked upon an orgy of mass killings, with 32 massacred. Nine of their victims were police officers, most of whom were vengefully murdered just because they were in police uniforms.
Justice Haleemah Salman of the Kwara State High Court Ilorin, sentenced five of the convicts to death, having found them guilty of illegal possession of arms, armed robbery and culpable homicide. The condemned robbers were: Ayoade Akinnibosun, Azeez Salahudeen, Niyi Ogundiran, Ibikunle Ogunleye and Adeola Abraham. They were sentenced to die by hanging.
The leader of the gang, Michael Adikwu, a dismissed ex-police officer, died in custody. It is believed that the Nigeria Police Force took Adikwu's matter personally because he was responsible for the assassinations of so many officers in his quest for vengeance over his dismissal.
With their diligent pursuit of this case to its logical conclusion over the span of six years the Nigeria Police have shown once again that they can be very effective in crime busting if properly motivated. If nothing else, that a dismissed colleague led a group of gunmen to hunt down and send nine of their colleagues to their early graves, is enough motivation. The families of the deceased officers can at least be consoled with the cold comfort that their breadwinners did not die in vain.
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The benefit of this efficient prosecution goes beyond hitting back at the murderers of innocent police officers. This is the kind feat that keeps criminals and the public reminded that the long arm of the law is still strong and capable of dispensing justice to whom it is due, even in today's Nigeria which appears to be in an advanced stage of state failure.
This is the kind of performance that fosters deterrence and reassures our law enforcement personnel that they will not be abandoned in their hazardous task of protecting the peaceful and law-abiding citizens.
A major lesson that our law enforcement agencies, especially the Police, must take home from this episode is that more care should be taken in profiling recruits into the service. Michael Adikwu was obviously unfit to work for the Police Force. More efforts should be made to keep crooked individuals off the Force at the point of recruitment.
Officers who leave the Force, especially those dismissed for offences, should be monitored because many of them will deploy their police experiences into criminality, with deep grudges against their ex-colleagues.
Ex-police officers must also be specially policed.
