OLASUNKAMI AKINLOTAN FROM PREMIUM TIMES
The only suspect arrested over the gruesome murder of a couple, Kehinde and Bukola Fatinoye, in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, has escaped from police custody.
Mr and Mrs Fatinoye were murdered on 1 January after returning home from a midnight service usually organised by churches to welcome a new year.
Their killers also abducted the son of the couple and their housemaid. The body of the son, Oreoluwa, was later recovered from a river in the Ogun State capital.
The abducted housemaid is currently receiving treatment in a hospital.
The suspect simply identified as Lekan, a driver of the late Mrs Fatinoye, had been identified by the surviving victim as one of the attackers.
The police subsequently took him into custody on Tuesday.
But he escaped from custody at Ibara Police Divisional Headquarters in Abeokuta.
A police source who is not allowed to speak on the matter, spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on the condition of anonymity. The source said Mr Lekan’s escape embarrassed the police and was being treated in secrecy by the police hierarchy.
The suspect was said to have been Mrs Fatinoye’s driver for almost two years and was well known within the community of the Federal University of Agriculture, FUNAAB, where the deceased woman worked.
The source further said, “The suspect pretended to be sick while the police were trying to take a statement from him. He fell and pretended to have fainted.
“He was quickly rushed to a police clinic at Zone II not far from the secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Iwe-Iroyin, in order to ‘rescue’ him so as to help the police in its investigation,” the source said
After he was revived by nurses, the source said, Mr Lekan requested to ease himself, but he escaped.
The source said the victim escaped into the Ogun Deputy Governor’s Lodge from where he scaled the fence to the house of the late Head of Interim Government, Ernest Shonekan.
The source further said efforts by officers at the scene to re-arrest the suspect were futile.
The source added that the officers tried frantically, including shooting into the air but all to no avail.
