Oyo Assembly orders re-arrest of escaped suspected serial killer

• State govt decries killings in Akinyele council
• Plans collaboration with community to stop menace
• Shifts dates for common entrance, placement exams

TRACKING___The Oyo State House of Assembly has ordered a prompt re-arrest of the escaped suspected serial killer in Akinyele Local Council of the state, Sunday Sodipe.

The House directed its Committee on Security and Strategy to urgently meet with the Oyo State Police Commissioner, Joe Nwachukwu Enwonwu, to ascertain and unravel the circumstances surrounding the escape of the prime suspect in the serial killings, who confessed to killing five people.

The directive was part of resolutions reached by the Assembly, yesterday, while deliberating on a matter of urgent public importance brought by Ayo Fatokun, who represents Akinyele 1.

The House, therefore, urged the Oyo State Commissioner of Police to urgently put measures in place to ensure the re-arrest and prompt prosecution of the prime suspect and other accomplices in the gruesome murder of no fewer than six people in the local council while equally calling for the deployment of more security agents to the council.

It also appealed to the Board of Oyo State Security Network, code-named Operation Amotekun, to expedite action on the ongoing recruitment of officers of the security outfit to enable them collaborate with other security agencies to promote peace and security in Akinyele and other areas in the state.

The Speaker, Adebo Ogundoyin, said it was a pity that the police were careless in their duty, adding that this development was an embarrassment to the entire Police Force.

Other lawmakers in their contributions to the motion condemned what they called the lackadaisical attitude of the men of the Nigerian police to their job of securing the lives and property of the citizens.

MEANWHILE, the Oyo State government yesterday decried the spate of killings at the Akinyele Local Council of the state with the recent murder of a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Funmilayo, by the alleged serial killer who escaped from the police custody after being paraded by the police barely a month ago.

Special Adviser to Governor Makinde on Security, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, who spoke at a security town hall meeting with stakeholders in the council, noted that providing security for a community should be devoid of ethnic, religious and other biases.

The former police commissioner maintained that the state government would continue to place a premium on security as the backbone of sustainable development.

He, therefore, urged non-state actors, especially residents of the affected communities, to give their maximum support to the government and security agencies during the period of the operation through intelligence sharing mechanism.

On his part, the Alakinyele of Akinyele, Oba James Odediran, said that there was need for a thorough investigation by the police to detect those police officers that were accomplices in the escape, adding that the escape of Shodipe pointed to the fact that no one was safe in the local council anymore.

IN another development, the state government has announced a shift in the common entrance examination into its schools of science from today, August 19 to Tuesday, September 1, 2020.

The state’s Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Olasunkanmi Olaleye, who disclosed this in a statement, said the shift became imperative as a result of a clash with the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) during which students are expected to write Economics and Agricultural Science.

Also, the date of the screening test for placement of pupils in terminal classes in public and private primary schools into Junior Secondary School 1 (JSS1) has been shifted from Thursday, August 20 to Saturday, August 22, 2020 due to another clash of the exam date with another WAEC subject.