ROBBERS ATTACK POLICE STATION IN EKITI STATE

Panic has gripped residents of Ido-Ekiti, headquarters of Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State, following a bloody attack on the town’s police station by a 40-man armed robbery gang on Friday night. A police inspector was killed while the station’s armory was looted by the suspected robbers. The robbers, who stormed the station at about 7.20 pm, attacked the station with dynamite which shattered facilities into smithereens.

The robbers, on gaining access into the station, opened fire on the Inspector who later died of the injuries he sustained in the attack. Few policemen were on duty at the station at the time of the attack, so the robbers met little or no resistance. The hoodlums also ransacked all the rooms in the police station in search of policemen and weapons.

Policemen were in mourning mood when reporters visited the station as they grief over the killing of the Inspector. One of the officers at the station who asked not be named, disclosed that some of the robbers drove recklessly into the station while other members of the gang scaled the fence and headed straight to the armory.

The source said: “They drove in recklessly and took over the entire police station. Some even scaled the fence and took strategic positions. They shot into the air sporadically and destroyed virtually every room. Our suspicion was that they case to loot the armoury because that was what they first attacked after demobilizing our men. In fact, they emptied the entire place.”

On whether the suspects might have invaded the station to free some suspects, the source replied: “That is not true because nobody was detained in the cell as at the time they incident took place.”
Efforts to speak with Ekiti police command spokesman Alberto Adeyemi was not successful as his mobile phones were switched off, but one of the policemen at the Ido station confirmed that Adeyemi visited earlier in the day to obtain first hand information.