SOURCE::::: THE PUNCH
Tension enveloped Oroki Housing Estate area of Osogbo, on Friday afternoon when officials of the Nigerian Prisons Service beat up two guardians, who were taking their wards home from school.
The guardians, Adeyemi Ahmed and Adeyemo Adam, had gone to pick up their cousins from Olive Branches Junior School, Osogbo, when the incident occurred.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent on Thursday, Ahmed said he had gone to pick up his two-year-old cousin (names withheld) from the school when an official car conveying the Controller of Prisons, Osun State, Mr. J.O Komolafe, drove against the traffic.
Adam, who was on a commercial motorcycle, said the rider of the motorcycle bearing him spoke harshly to the occupants of the prisons vehicle.
He said a top official of the NPS got out of the car and ordered that he be taken to NPS office, which is a block away in order to be taught a lesson.
“Immediately he gave the order. About 10 of them just ran towards me. They took the baby from me, abandoned her on the road and started beating me with gun butts and blows. It was officials of the school that took the baby away from the road.
“When they dragged me to their office, more officers pounced on me. May be they taught I was the motorcyclist. They took my gold necklace, tore my clothes and took away my phone and N92,000.”
Giving his own side of the story, Adam, who is related to Adeyemi, said he was shocked when he came to the scene and saw how Adeyemi was being brutalised.
Efforts to rescue Adeyemi from the alleged assailants, he said, got him into trouble as he too was beaten up.
Adam said, “I was urging them not to beat him anymore but they won’t listen. They got my phone from me when I tried to make a call and they smashed it on the floor. The rammed their gun butts into my stomach.”
Confirming the incident, Proprietor of the school, Mr Goke Omigbodun, lamented that NPS officials had become a terror to residents, guardians and parents in the area.
He recalled several episodes which involved NPS officials battering parents and guardians who had come to drop or pick up their children from his nearby school.
Omigbodun said, “I witnessed the battery. It was inhuman and shocking. Even if the prisons boss was abused, should his officials take the law into their hands? My wife was turned back when she went to their office to plead for the release of the two men.
Reacting, Komolafe said, “I didn’t drive against traffic. I only reversed so that a woman driver who was learning how to drive could pass. When the motorcycle came to my side, the person he was bearing called me names. He said I was ‘oga elewon’ (prisoners’ master).
“This was why some of our officials arrested him. I told them to take him to the police station. He was not beaten. Nobody smashed his phone or stole his money.”
But a witness, Mr. A. Adesina, confirmed that the two men were beaten black and blue by more than 20 NPS officials, stressing that the scene was “as barbaric as it was obscene.”
Adesina said, “Many female parents were weeping as they were watching the beating. I have never seen such maltreatment in my life.”
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