A grieving father, Segun Johnson, has accused the Osun State Police Command of releasing a Department of State Services officer identified as Bamidele aka Aji, who shot dead his 21-year-old son, Temitope.
The inconsolable 50-year-old father said operatives of the Criminal Investigation Department in Osun State released Bamidele the same day he was arrested without conducting any investigation.
Segun told The PUNCH that Temitope was shot dead on October 6, 2021, when some DSS operatives raided his son’s house in the Owode-Ede area of Osun State.
The father of four said he had not seen his son since the deadly raid.
Narrating the sad incident to our correspondent on Wednesday, Segun said his son had “moved to Owode-Ede to attend post-Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination tutorials and process his admission into the polytechnic in Ede because I have an in-law who is a lecturer in the school.”
“They’ve just moved into the house not up to three months when he was shot dead by DSS operatives,” said amid sobs.
According to him, the admission-seekers in the house he son resided had an argument with an electrician and a DSS informant in the neighbourhood immediately alerted the secret police.
One motorcycle rider in the area known as Sunday Olatunbosun phoned the DSS. He is known as a DSS informant. The DSS came and shot sporadically into the house. My son was in the house and was not aware of the whole scuffle between his colleagues and the electrician.
“Eyewitnesses told me my son was shot by the DSS and that they took his body away in a vehicle. I have not seen him till now. That was on October 6, 2021,” the distressed father said.
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Segun said the case was reported to the CID in Osogbo and the DSS operative and his informant were arrested but lamented that the police released them the same day.
“I reported the matter to the police and got a lawyer. The DSS informant (Olatunbosun) was arrested and he confessed that he phoned the DSS that raided the house.
The following day, on November 26, 2021, the CID arrested the DSS operative and interrogated him. I was called to look at him and I took his photograph on my phone. I was told that investigation had commenced.
“But by 7pm when I and my lawyer left the police headquarters in Osogbo, one of the police officers at the CID phoned me saying their boss asked them to release the DSS officer the same day he was arrested. They also released the DSS informant too. I was alarmed and challenged him.
“I later met with the Commissioner of Police in Osun (Wale Olokode), and he ordered the head of the CID to produce the DSS operative but he has not done so,” he recounted.
Segun demanded the whereabouts of his son, whether alive or dead.
“I don’t have anybody in power and I have been running helter-skelter since then. I am in trauma. They shot my son and took his body away to cover up their tracks. I want the people in authority to help me. This is injustice,” he said.
Efforts to get the comments of the Commissioner of Police in the state (Olokode) proved abortive as he neither took his calls nor replied to a text message sent to his line by our correspondent.
Also, DSS Spokesman, Peter Afunanya, did not take calls to his line and did not respond to a text message seeking comments on the matter.
The secret police in recent times have been accused of killing armless citizens during bloody raids and taking their bodies away. The DSS gunned down two aides of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho during a Gestapo raid on his Ibadan residence around 2am on July 1, 2021.
