WOLE BALOGUN, Ado Ekiti
A police witness, Isa Abubakar, has cried out over alleged threat to his life by police operatives who are connected to a case of murder of Elijah Ogor in Ayegbaju Ekiti, in Oye Local Government Area of the state.
Ogor was killed by a suspected Fulani herder, simply identified as Babuga in February.
Abubakar, 45, who is a Fulani from Ilorin, Kwara State, had witnessed the aftermath of a murder of an Igede man in Ayegbaju Ekiti by the suspect who was later arrested in Ido Ekiti, but the case has since then turned against him.
Speaking to newsmen in Ado Ekiti on Monday with his wife, Fatimah, Abubakar said he only helped the police to catch the suspect, but the way his life had been threatened allegedly by policemen in charge of the case in the last one week speaks volume about what really is the stand of the police on the matter.
‘’I knew about the incident when some Igede people came to me with machetes and other dangerous weapons after Ogor was murdered brutally in his farm. They said I’m the Fulani man they know, so they planned to attack me until some indigenes of the town stopped them.
‘’I called the Seriki Abashe, the head of the Fulani people in that area who lives in Ido Ekiti. He told me to confirm the incidence and I went there with some police officers. Later that day, he called to inform me that the suspect had been arrested and we should come for him.
Abubakar said the suspect was handed over to the police in Oye Ekiti, but trouble started when the case was transferred to Lokoja, the Zone 8 headquarters of the Nigeria Police.
He said: ‘’I was called by a policeman in Oye and asked to make myself available for a trip to Lokoja. I was ready to go but they had one excuse or the other for about three days, so we couldn’t make the trip.
“They started threatening me after that, saying I would answer for the murder if I don’t make myself available. They even came to my house twice to search for what I don’t know.”
He said he was ready to comply with the request until information got to him that he was about to be lured and poisoned in Lokoja because the suspect had a connection with some prominent Nigerians, and he was about to be released.
He, therefore, called on the police authority to investigate the case as the reports he had made had not stopped the threat.