By Our Correspondent in Ilorin.
The Police officer in charge of the armoury when armed robbers raided Offa, a popular town in kwara state on April 5,2018, Insp. Kayode Oke, was killed inside his office while sleeping.
Segt. Sulaiman Mahmoud,the sixth prosecuting witness, disclosed this while testifying before the Kwara State High Court on Tuesday in Ilorin at the continuation of hearing on the robbery case, during cross examination by the defence counsel,Mathias Emeribe.
Mahmoud, who was the station guard dury the incident said that the armoury officer, Oke Kayode, was ill and on medication,sleeping in his office when the robbers struck at about 4:45 p.m.
He also told the court that he lost his AK 47 rifle during the robbery, adding that the gun dropped while he was scaling through the police station fence to escape superior fire power of the hoodlums.
Mahmoud said:”I was at the entrance of the police station when I suddenly heard gunshots from Captain Cook junction. I ran into the police station, shouting to alert others that armed robbers were approaching our station. I ran for cover, shooting to scare the robbers away.
“Suddenly, my gun got hooked and no one to assist me. I ran into the escape route of the station with my rifle. As I was about scaling the fence, my rifle fell off me and I couldn’t go back to retrieve it as the armed robbers already took over the station.
“After the shooting subsided, I came back to meet my colleagues crying. I went to the place where my rifle fell off me, but I didn’t see it again.”
The court on Tuesday also ordered the prison authorities to see to medical complaints of the first accused in the robbery case, Ayoade Akinnibosun, who the defence counsel said needed serious medical attention.
The defence counsel had told the court that Akinnibosun was having severe pains on his wrist, ankle and right lap.
He said that Akinnibosun, “has swollen on his right lap, close to his scrotum. The pain has been constant, repeated and severe. He needs a thorough medical examination.”
The presiding judge, Justice Halima Saleema, overruled objection to the admissibility of the death certificate raised by the defence counsel.
The defence counsel had objected to the admissibility of the document, saying that the documents were not coming from the maker and thus not admissible.
While adjourning the case to December 22, 2020, Justice Saleema agreed to long adjournment moved by the prosecution counsel, Bola Razaq Gold.
Gold had said that the police officer, who is the prosecution’s next witness, Danjuma Mohammed Garba, is away in Somalia on a training course and would complete the programme on December 15, 2020.
The prosecution counsel had said that the video recordings and CCTV shots of the robbery incident in the affected banks ought to be played and analyzed in court by Garba before any other witness would give evidence.
“Without tendering those documentary evidence through him, our other witnesses would not be able to give evidence”, he said.
The Reporters, an online publication, reports that all the accused: Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salahudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran were present in court.
