One of the suspects known as Friday Akininibosin who is facing trial at a High Court in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital for his alleged involvement in the 5th April, 2018 bank robbery in Offa, Kwara State, in his testimony before the court has accused the police of forcing him to indict Senate President Bukola Saraki.
Mr. Friday Akininibosin told the court that before his arrest he had no personal knowledge of the Senate President Bukola Saraki. He told the court that a former police officers named Michael Adikwu, who was allegedly involved in the robbery, was killed for his inability to go with the alleged plan of the prosecutors.
After the suspects were arrested for their alleged involvement in the 15th April, 2018 bank robbery in Offa, Kwara State which resulted in the death of seventeen (17) people, including nine police officers, the Nigerian Police cited confessions made by the accused persons during investigation, as indicting the Senate President Bukola Saraki. The suspect, Mr. Friday Akininibosin, was also linked to the Senate President Bukola Saraki after a picture of one of the accused at a wedding with Bukola Saraki emerged, linking the Senate president with the armed robbers.
The police claimed that the suspects confessed to have at one time worked as thugs for Bukola Saraki who allegedly supplied them with the ammunition used in the robbery. The claim was denied by Bukola Saraki who accused the police of victimizing him.
In his testimony to the court, Mr. Friday Akininibosin, retracted his earlier confessional statement and accused the police of masterminding his confession which he claims was written for him by police officers. He narrated his ordeal thus, “My hands and legs were tied to the back and suspended in between two tables by iron rod for like one hour 30 minutes. Then the senior police officer, Abba Kyari, came around to tell me that I should say that it was the Senate president that gave us guns to rob Offa banks.” “I told him my life is at stake here and that I wouldn’t do such. Then, he said I should do that for them and that they’ll pay me and thereafter set me free. I disagreed and was carried back to the cell on his instruction as I couldn’t walk.”
Investigations into the police officer, Abba Kyari mentioned by Mr. Friday Akininibosin is the police officer who led the team that arrested the suspects. Abba Kyari has also in the past led his team to effect the arrest of other major crime suspects across Nigeria. He and his team have however, been accused of rights abuses and corruption in the past; charges which the police officer had denied.
Mr. Friday Akininibosin also added that he was intimidated by the police by killing five men in their presence and ordering them (the accused) to lie on the bodies of the dead people. He stated that the police shot his leg and was later taken to Abba Kyari office, where he asked to know if he was ready to cooperate and he said agreed for fear that he will be killed.
He also told the court that the dismissed police officer, Michael Adikwu, was shot dead in their presence for failing to identify them and to say what connected them. The claim which the police denied claiming that Michael Adikwu died a natural death while in custody.
Mr. Friday Akininibosin told the court that having seen what happened to the five men and Michael Adikwu he was terrified and feared for his own life so he made the confessional statement to indict the senate president under duress when a journalist was later brought in who take his confessional statement. He told the court by saying, “I was panicked, thinking I was next to die. Later, a female TV journalist was brought by a police officer with a note, saying that was what they wanted me to say, and that if not, I will “travel”, meaning, I would be killed. “That was how I agreed in the presence of the female journalist, who recorded while I was also beaten at intervals.”
