Murder Of Oyerinde: Gov. Oshiomhole Wants DIG’s Dismissal

Late Olaitan Oyerinde and Gov. Adams Oshomole

Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo has called for the immediate dismissal of the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) and other officers who investigated the murder of his Private Secretary, Olaitan Oyerinde.

Oshiomhole made the call in Abuja on Thursday when he delivered a keynote address at the inauguration of a Code of Conduct for officers and men of the Nigeria Police.

 The governor said that he remained aggrieved over the trivial manner in which the police handled the investigation. Oshiomhole therefore urged President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene in the matter.

 ``I-G, I am aggrieved; I am aggrieved over the murder of my private secretary and the way in which it was trivialised.

``I am saying it, knowing that the Vice President is here. My secretary was murdered in cold blood and you dispatched a DIG to supervise that investigation.

``A DIG is a sufficiently senior officer.

They came to Benin and they did what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have called police magic.

``In the end, they went for a civil rights activist and charged him with the offence of murder,’’ he said.

Oshiomhole alleged that the DIG conspired with other officers involved in the investigation to shield the killers of Oyerinde, saying that they were no longer fit to wear the uniform.

``The DIG Force CID has a case to answer.

It is either he is guilty of conspiracy to murder or is guilty of conspiracy to shield murderers or both, in which case, he cannot wear his police uniform, he must be dismissed.

``The Deputy Commissioner of Police that he used, who claimed that they have done a thorough job, has no business wearing police uniform because by my judgment, in his own narrative, he is a criminal,’’ he stressed.

He said that the police claimed in their report the man who killed Oyerinde as well as the gun used to murder him were already in police custody at the time of the incident.

 ``They wrote a report that the man, who was involved in the murder, including the entry made by a DPO in a police station, was already under police detention.

``The weapon that was used for the murder was used for armed robbery earlier, recovered by the police and under police custody at the time my secretary was murdered.

``So, the man who murdered my secretary was in police custody, the gun used was in police custody and this is the findings of the police,’’ he said.

According to him, the only conclusion that could be reached was that the police ordered the murder of the private secretary.

He urged the vice president to report to the president if the killers of Olaitan could not be found.

 ``I feel terrible that as a governor I can’t get justice. If I can’t get justice, then an average Nigerian cannot expect justice and we can’t have justice if we can’t tell the truth,’’ he said.

 The governor said that one of the problems of Nigeria was the culture of impunity where people do things wrongly and got away with it.

``This country cannot be reduced to banana republic and when the stick and carrot are appropriately applied, the message of discipline will be clear to all, ’’ he said.

 The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Oyerinde was murdered in his home in Benin on May 4, 2012.