LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- One Mrs Funmi Afolabi has appealed to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Usman Baba, to help find her two children who have been in custody of the Ondo Police since her remand in Olokuta Correctional Centre, Akure, over a murder case.
Punch reports that, the children, Segun Afolabi and Blessing Afolabi, were aged seven and one and a half years when Afolabi and her husband were arrested by the Police on 13 November, 2010, and charged to court for alleged murder.
After the arrest, the couple and six others in the case were reportedly remanded in prison custody, Olokuta Akure since 2010.
It was also learnt that a team of policemen from Abuja told the couple to release the two children, promising to hand them over to a charity house for proper care pending the determination of their case.
Counsel to the couple, Mr. Wale Omotoso (SAN), while speaking on the matter in Akure, said several efforts by him and some individuals to see that the children were released to his client, based on the promises made by the Police authority in Abuja, have proved abortive.
Omotoso said: “Honestly, I don’t know what is wrong but I know, something is actually wrong somewhere. All efforts made to rejoin the two children with their mother out of the perceived police authority Charity Home could not yield any positive results.
“This case is like beating a child and telling him or her not to cry. We will continue till the water that comes out from our eyes will turn to flood in the police compound unless the Nigeria Police Authority do the needful by giving Caesar what belongs to Caesar (that is, giving back the traumatised woman her children).
“Let me once again commend Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, for the good work he is doing and the credible leadership he has been offering our nation since he assumed office. We are passionately pleading with him to use his good offices to help us find the whereabouts of these children who have been with the police authority for the past 10 years. I know justice will be done on this matter.”
The mother, speaking with journalists, appealed to Nigerians to help find her missing children, explained that she regained her freedom when she was discharged and acquitted on 21 November, 2019 and since then she had been battling with Police authority to see her children to no avail.
She pleaded with the IGP to use his office to intervene in the matter so that she could be united with her children.
“I am ready to commit suicide if I don’t see my children,” she said.
When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Funmilayo Odunlami, reacting to the case, expressed surprise as she urged the complainant and her lawyer to endeavour to see the state commissioner of police on the matter.
“I am hearing about the case for the first time. But there are processes of doing things like that if the children are in a charity home, the woman’s lawyer should take a legal means to get back the children or they should come to the headquarters here to come and see the CP, ” the PPRO advised.
