Osun Monarch averts crisis as businessmen debunk ‘ritual killing’ claim

The Oluwo of Iwo Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi has warned against jungle justice, vandalism and looting in the town as he averted a major crisis in the town.

Earlier, two women were stripped naked, beaten to coma and set ablaze for allegedly attempting to kidnap a child. Attempts by policemen to rescue the women from the mob failed.

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Two businessmen in the area, Alhaji AbdurRafiu AbdulWaheed Esteem and Alhaji Saheed Asifat, founders of Esteem International Stores and Al-Furqan Megatop Investment, said some individuals instigated the mob to attack their stores and vandalise their properties so as to enable them to loot, using the false allegation that the owners were involved in the ritual killings.

They alleged that some individuals targeted their stores and that they were planning to use the same strategy employed by hoodlum that looted public and private properties under the pretext of the #EndSARS protest.

AbdulWaheed and Asifat said: “We find it necessary to respond to the rumour making the rounds that we were involved with the gang of serial killers led by one Alamu Monsuru who is being investigated by the police

“We want to put it on record that we are not involved with the criminal gang in anyway. We don’t even know Alamu, the alleged ring leader, neither have we had any transaction with him.”

“Alamu was said to have mentioned some people as his partners in crime, to the glory of God, we were not among those he mentioned.

“Hence, the rumour that we were arrested by police and taken to Osogbo and made to pay a sum of one million naira to the police is unfounded. All along, we have been in our shops and offices, doing to our legal business”

The monarch, who visited the scene to calm the tension, appealed to the people to shun violence and continue to observe COVID-19 safety guidelines, especially social distancing, warning that coronavirus is still around.