92 Freed, 60 Feared Dead from Abadan Islamist Toruture Camp
When Sunday Vanguard spoke with some of the inmates, they alleged that the prime suspect, Mohammed Olore, who claimed to be an Islamic cleric, only used the school to cover up, adding that he engaged in selling parts of those who died among them to influential people who patronized him. They pointed out that at least two to three people died within a month through torture and they were always taken to Sasa Cemetery for burial by the ‘cleric’ who later removed their parts and sold them.
Sunday Vanguard also gathered that some people including a mobile policeman from Arowomole in Ogbomoso were kidnapped and detained at the camp. The arrest of the prime suspect and his collaborators almost led to a full-blown confrontation between the police and loyalists of the suspects.
Oyo State police commissioner, Prince Udom Ekpoudom, while parading eleven suspects in Ibadan, in connection with the case, said “the experience at the scene was unbelievable and the treatment given to their captives, 90 per cent of them, was dehumanizing. Six of the hostages who are females complained that they were subjected to series of sexual acts against their wish. It was also discovered that illegal abortions were carried out on pregnant inmates in the camp. It was a situation where human beings were shrunk to skeletal frame with severe burns and rashes.
Grievous inhuman treatment usually resulted in multiple deaths of the inmates who were subsequently buried without any report to the police. The hostages in unison confessed that bodies of deceased inmates were usually eaten by their captors.”
The police boss, an assistant inspector general of police, AIG, confirmed that some influential people had been pestering him to release the suspects arrested earlier at Olomi in connection with illegal detention but he would not be cowed into releasing them without being tried by the court. But the prime suspect in the latest torture chamber, denied all the allegations, saying they were made to disparage his person.