Ile-Ife: Hope the police are not giving in to blackmail?

Iread in a newspaper report that “Fifteen out of the 21 indigenes of Ile-Ife arrested over their alleged involvement in the March 8, 2017 clash between the Yoruba and Hausa communities in the ancient town have been released “unconditionally”.

Confirming the unconditional release to the Vanguard, Afenifere’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Yinka Odumakin, triumphantly added: “We are awaiting the release of the remaining six indigenes and we also demand their unconditional release too”.

Of a truth, there are two possibilities as to why the police would release some of the suspects they held in connection with the massacre in Sabo, Ile-Ife. One, it could be that after thorough investigations, the police found out that none of the released suspects actually had any hand in the carnage. I do not have any problem with this and neither should anyone, I think! Two, it could equally be that after Afenifere and OPC’s clarion call for Oduduwa esprit de corps to which dozens of Yoruba attorneys (SANs) responded by volunteering their legal services in support of the suspects, the Nigeria police got intimidated and bamboozled into releasing the suspects. And may be the smart, experienced cops decided to do the releasing in batches so as to gauge the response/reaction of the relatives of those massacred or their tribesmen. If they respond true to type by being care-free, happy-go-lucky and exhibiting the habitual let-us-leave-allto-Allah Hausa/Fulani fatalistic belief, they go ahead and release ‘the remaining six’ suspects and ‘unconditionally’ too--as Mr Odumakin commanded them (the police) to do! This is where my shoe pinches!

But, be that as it may, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) should know that the eventual outcome of their handling of the Massacre in Sabo, Ile-Ife, will ultimately send one of two strong messages to the parties involved and keenly watchful members of the public. While a successful prosecution, conviction and penalization of perpetrators will help engender and re-affirm peoples’ confidence in the police as a competent force for public security good, a laissez faire approach will only help justify and entrench the primitively barbaric culture of reprisal attacks! This is because people’s confidence in the police and the entire justice system would then be irredeemably destroyed and any act of mob violence by a tribe will ineluctably beget another one in a ceaselessly vicious, uncontrollable cycle of sanguinary titfor-tat! A stitch in time, they say, saves nine!

Hamisu Hadejia, Lokoja, Kogi State.