Among victims of Thursday bank robbery attacks in Offa, Kwara State were a man and his wife, who had gone to the police station to settle their quarrel. Sources in the community last night said, that one of the partners had gone to the police station to lodge a report against the other, despite pleas by neighbours for them to settle the quarrel amicably at home. Although their identities were yet to be known, their story was a topic of discussion among residents of the town yesterday as more facts emerged about victims of the robberies. The couple was said to have been among the civilian victims the robbers killed when they invaded the police station.
Their story came up against the backdrop of questions being asked on the whereabouts of detainees at the station after the robbers struck. While some residents claimed that the robbers killed all of them and therefore increased the number of victims, state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ajayi Okasanmi, denied such insinuations, insisting there was no one in police detention as at the time of the incident.
He said: “There was no one in detention when the robbers struck; the only civilians they killed at the station were those who came to lodge complaint as earlier explained.” One other victim has also been identified as Jamiu Adekunle Alawode, Head of Operations, at Stockup Microfinance Bank, beside Zenith Bank in the town. He was killed inside the bank. Alawode was said to have been in his early 40s. “He was a very hardworking person and honest. We are still mourning him.
In fact we are still trying to pacify his wife,” Jamiu’s elder brother, a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Federal Polytechnic, Offa, told our correspondent yesterday. He said that although the deceased had worked in other places before, it was at the microfinance bank that he had begun to get settled and accomplished.
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Crime