A 52-year-old head of Igunnuko, a local masquerade group at the Ifako-Ijaiye area of Lagos, Ariyo Elegbede, is among 10 suspects arrested over the death of a policeman, Sergeant Collins Esiabor.
Esiabor was lynched on August 29, 2018 at Ifako Ijaiye by suspected members of a secret cult group, the Aiye confraternity.
An 82-year-old herbalist, Babatunde Rufai, who the police described as a specialist in treating gunshot victims, is also among those arrested.
While Elegbede was arrested for allegedly participating in the actual lynching of the policeman, Rufai was said to have administered first aid to a member of the cult said to have mistakenly shot himself on the leg with a police rifle.
Though Elegbede denied his involvement in Esiabor’s murder, the Lagos State police boss, Imohimi Edgal, insisted the Igunnuko leader connived with the herbalist to treat a suspect of gunshot wound before the suspect fled to Ondo State.
Edgal, who paraded the suspects yesterday at the Command Headquarters, Ikeja, said that on the day of the incident at Haruna bus stop, Ifako-Ijaiye, a mob, “for no good reason and without any provocation whatsoever”, attacked a police patrol team and vandalized a patrol van stationed to provide security in the area, leading to the death of Sergeant Esiabor.
“Investigation into the case revealed that the suspects are cultists as attested to by one of them, Ayo Adeyanju, who conveyed the corpse of their late member to the burial site. On their way, they decided to avenge the death of the deceased on the police patrol team, though it is clear that the police had no physical contact whatsoever with the deceased,” he said.
He added that those arrested identified Rufai and Elegbede as their native doctors.
Edgal said one dane gun and assorted charms were recovered from the suspects, while detectives were on the trail of the injured member of the confraternity who mistakenly fired himself on his leg with a rifle he allegedly snatched from the slain sergeant.
