A suspect in the April 2018 Offa robbery case, Ayoade Akinrinbosun, on Wednesday revealed that former Commander, IRT Squad, DCP Abba Kyari, offered him N10m to implicate former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki in the robbery case.
The suspect, who appeared before the trial judge, Justice Alimat Salman, of the Kwara state High Court sitting in Ilorin, also revealed that the suspected prime mastermind of the robbery incident, Michael Adikwe, was allegedly shot dead in his presence at the Abuja Abbatoir police command.
He claimed that the incident forced him to agree to implicate Bukola Saraki in a prepared statement before the press.
Ayoade, one of the five suspects facing trial in the Offa robbery case, led in examination by the defence counsel, Mathias Emeribe, SAN, alleged that Abba Kyari, also promised him visa to any country of his choice if he grants his request to implicate Dr Saraki.
He however, turned down the offer saying “Abba Kyari said I should admit and say that Saraki was the one who asked them to go and rob.
“I told him I won’t do that, that I will rather die for what I didn’t do than to lie against an innocent man,” the suspect added.
He said Abba Kyari asked him to think over the request very well and ordered Hassan and Mashood to return him to the cell different from where others were kept with an instruction that they should stop torturing him.
Ayoade, further alleged that some herdsmen were killed in his presence, just as he was mercilessly tortured and shot in the leg in the bid to force him to implicate Dr Saraki.
The suspect who maintained that Dr Saraki had nothing to do with the alleged robbery case, said “we were like 15 to 20 suspects taken to Abuja, I only know few of them. We were outside and served with meals, but I could not eat due to the torture I went through in their hands in Ilorin, they asked Kunle Ogunleye to feed me.
“They separated five of us, put us in the generator house and the next officer, Hassan Attila, ordered that they should bring the herdsmen.
” They went to bring the five Fulani men and killed them all in my presence,” he alleged.
“I was told that was not a film. He asked me to stretch my legs and shot my right leg. He shot the second leg but when I tried to shift the leg, the bullet hit my tomb,” Ayoade recounted.
The trial judge adjourned the case till February 13th,2023.
At least nine police officers were killed in the bloody robbery incident which claimed more than 30 persons lives.
Five suspects – Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham and two others – were also charged to court by the police for criminal conspiracy to rob the banks, murder of nine policemen and other citizens, and illegal possession of firearms.
