Armed robbers beat up school principal to coma, kill undergraduate , torment Ekiti community

If the late Temitope Ogunleye, 200 lev­el Accounting student of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti had been in his school premises last Monday,

he probably wouldn’t have met a cruel fate in the hands of a 10-man robbery gang that gunned him down right before his parents and siblings. But the institution had been shut down a couple of months ago due to a yet-to-be resolved crisis between the school authority and workers’ union.

Ogunleye, 23, fell to the bullets of ram­paging young men of his age who invaded his parents’ house at 14, Olorunda, Zone 4 area of Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti State on Monday, February 16.

According to the deceased’s younger sis­ter, 18-year-old Yetunde Ogunleye, also an undergraduate at Olabisi Onabanjo Univer­sity (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, the rob­bery incident that claimed young Ogunleye’s life, has also landed her daddy, Elder Ogunl­eye, the Principal of Idu High School in Erio- Ekiti, in hospital as he was cruelly beaten to coma by the robbers.

Sobbing like a baby, Yetunde narrated the harrowing encounter to Saturday Sun. Ac­cording to her: “They left our neighbour who was first attacked and descended on our house and started demanding that we open the door. I was already awake then and was charging my phone. I ran into daddy’s room and he took me and others into the sitting room. We were five in the house. Daddy instructed that we should be raising the alarm, shouting ole! ole!! ole!!! (Thief!) And we were doing that probably to attract neighbours and scare the robbers away.

“But the robbers threatened further, say­ing: ‘If you like, shout God’s name, you are all dead today’ and continued to demand that we open the door. They used a cutlass to tear off the net on our window and then started shooting into the sitting room through the window.

“Unfortunately, my elder brother, Temi­tope Ogunleye, was standing beside the re­frigerator in the sitting room then and raising the alarm as instructed by daddy. Suddenly, the shots being fired by the robbers hit him on his stomach and he cried and collapsed. Then the robbers threatened further that if we don’t open the door, they would shoot all of us dead. It was at that moment I opened the door and our daddy went out to meet them and begged them to kill him instead of harm­ing anyone else in the family.

“The robbers then swooped on my dad­dy and started beating him, they punched, kicked, slapped and clubbed him severally until he fell into coma. Then, thinking he was dead, they said: ‘Yes, he is dead, that is good. Let’s go.’

“But then, they didn’t go immediately, they turned to my mum who had been cry­ing and begging them to let daddy go, they slapped her severally and ordered her to give them money, mum rushed to her room to bring all that we had in the house and gave them. After that, they ran into my daddy’s room and searched every nook and cranny of the room, but not finding anyone or anything there, they left.”

“We want justice”, Yetunde demanded, adding that the police must fish out the kill­ers of her elder brother and the government should provide adequate security in the new settlement areas in Ado-Ekiti.

The bereaved and grieving young lady also said that the incident has left her parents in bad shape. “My mum, who has been trau­matized by the sad development, is still in great shock over the death of my elder brother. She’s being drugged to sleep. Daddy doesn’t even know that we have lost my brother now and we can’t tell him yet. He is in critical condition in the hospital”, she said.

Mrs. Orire Adedunke Titilade, 55, a retired teacher, who lives at 13, Olorunda Zone 4, is a neighbour to the Ogunleyes. Her apartment was the first to be attacked by the robbers. Still try­ing to recover from the trauma she went through during the encounter with the evil men, she said: “The men who invaded our homes were more than 10. They had touches which they were us­ing to check the cars in front of the house. The vehicles that were parked here were about four because some of our neighbours use to park here.

“ There is a health worker behind my building, so, when I saw them using the torchlight to check the vehicles I thought it was the health worker who wanted to take a patient to the hospital at that late hour.

“So, I peeped through my window to say hello to them. They returned my greeting and demanded that I come out with my husband. It was then I sensed that there was trouble because I’m a widow. I then protested, saying ‘I have no husband, I am a widow.’ I also began to pray, but they had already begun to use their torchlight to search through our living room, from the win­dow. They tore the window net and were making frantic effort to break in through both the window and the door, using big planks, hard blocks and other hard objects. I rushed out from my room, confused and frightened, I made effort to head for the door and open it but then I crashed against the wall and couldn’t even see properly. I then began to call out to them that I couldn’t open the door because I had crashed into a wall and couldn’t see properly.

“But they continued to hit the front and back doors of the building very hard such that the loud noise was echoing all over the neighbour­hood, they were also shooting sporadically into the air and were threatening to shoot anyone who dared to come out against them. I think when it appeared to them that I couldn’t go out, they headed for my neigbhour in front of our house and were doing the same thing they did to my house to theirs.

“Later, the neighbours helped us to send the number of someone who I later knew to be the state Commissioner of Police, the child that was with me called the number and told them that our place is Olorunda area, Zone 4. But the robbers must have spent over an hour in robbing the other house before they left and the police couldn’t make it here during that time.

“The robbers stormed our area around 1:25 am but the police couldn’t make it to this place until well over 3am that Monday, neighbours said they didn’t know the road well and had to come from far away in Oke-Ila area. Moreso, the road lead­ing to our area from their station is very bad, that I heard, also caused them some delay.

“Early the next day, the Divisonal Police Of­ficer of Oke-Ila paid us a visit to examine the scenes of crime. The policemen took the bullets that were shot into the two apartments. The CP also came and after consoling us and examining the scenes of crime, promised to give us a police station in the neighbourhood. In fact, he was very prompt about it as he has assigned the personnel to be in the station already, all that our landlords association is doing now is to get a temporary of­fice for them to resume and start arrangement on a permanent site for them. We were even told the Ewi of Ado, Oba Adejugbe, has sent his team of chiefs to see to how they can provide a plot of land for the police station, “ the old woman said.

While confirming the incident, the state CP, Mr. Taiwo Lakanu said: “I paid a visit to the area, noticed the vastness and have discussed with the Ewi on the provision of a building to be used as police station. Two vehicles are presently at­tached to the area.”

BY WOLE BALOGUN