Usman Baba, the inspector general of police, has mandated an investigation into the death of Taiye Atobaloye, a police inspector who had been held at the Kogi State Police Command’s “D” Division.
Muyiwa Adejobi, the Force’s public relations officer, promised the family that justice would be served in a statement on Saturday.
According to Saturday PUNCH, Taiye, a member of the Oke Onigbin Police Division in Kwara State, was assigned to the Zone 8 Police Command in Lokoja for a specific assignment.
A divisional disagreement over whether another inspector should have been assigned to the position led to the policeman declining the position, though.
He reported to the zonal headquarters for the special duty after his attempt to stop the deployment failed, and was put in a cell for being absent from work without authorization.
His wife, Oluwabukola, claimed that his phone was taken from him when she last spoke to him as he was being thrown into a cell in an interview with our correspondent.
She claimed that subsequent phone calls to him were unsuccessful.
The woman also claimed that a week later, a police officer using her husband’s phone called a family friend to inform them that he had passed away.
The teacher claimed that after making additional calls to the number, a policeman answered the phone but disconnected the call when she asked to speak to her husband.
She claimed her husband was murdered and demanded justice.
“My husband was not ill, aside from the accident that resulted in the break in his leg. He might have been poisoned or the cell may have been chemically sprayed.
I want everyone to be aware of what they did to my husband. He was heavily taxed before he was killed by torture.
“We were wed for twelve years. He would have called me about six or eight times by this point in the day (12 o’clock) to check on my well-being.
“They simply took him away from me. At least four stillbirths have occurred in our family. And now they’re asking me to go pick up his body like I’m picking up an animal,” she said.
Adejobi responded by stating that justice would be done in the situation.
“Details from the zonal command headquarters report showed that the inspector was posted on April 1st, 2023, reported on April 11th, and was immediately posted as part of the team manning the main gate of the zonal command headquarters,” he said.
“However, he neglected to show up at the duty station and disappeared for nine days before turning up on April 19 in a drunken state. He eventually defaulted and was imprisoned for being absent from work and intoxicated. He reportedly fell ill while in custody, was transferred to the police clinic, then was directed to the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja, where he eventually passed away.
“The Inspector-General of Police has tasked the Criminal Investigation Department’s Homicide Unit of the Kogi State Command to commence investigations and conduct a postmortem examination on the corpse in order to determine the cause(s) of his death,” reads a statement from the Inspector-General of Police.
