Ondo residents rail against arbitrary arrests by police as Olakunrin is buried

Despair, palpitations, and rage seethe in the hearts of Nigerians as the late Olufunke Olakunrin, who was killed by unknown gunmen, is laid to rest today, while innocent Ondo State residents decry indiscriminate arrest by police.

Since the order by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who visited the national leader of Afenifere and father of the deceased, Reuben Fasoranti, security forces have occupied the highways in and around the state.

They were deployed to curtail the recurring criminal activities on the highways, though some bandits still attacked road users on Tuesday, three days after she was killed.

The Guardian gathered that the security operatives stormed the area and started arresting innocent citizens in their houses and on their farms, abandoning the forests where the criminals hide.

“The police refused to enter the bush. They only searched our houses and arrested innocent people here and on their farms. Already, they have taken more than 50 people in the villages here, innocent people working on their farms, even some from their house, to the police station,” a source who pleaded anonymity said.

The lawyer-turned-banker daughter of the Afenifere chief was killed on Friday, July 12, 2014 along Ore/Lagos Expressway, some kilometres from Omotoso.

An indigene of Ode-Aye, a town in Okitipupa Council of the state, said he went to work on his gmelina farm with his friend on Sunday and was arrested.

“We were about going to bathe when we saw a group of soldiers. They arrested us and alleged that we were among the kidnappers. They beat us mercilessly and compelled us to confess what we didn’t know about. But we insisted that we are innocent,” he said.

A good number of Ondo residents also complained of the arbitrary police arrests in the area, as they search the killers of Fasoranti’s daughter.